Installing nature in urban landscapes

For the last few months, as Philadelphia debates the merits of wrapping buildings in advertisements, photographer Tim Simmons installed images of nature on urban billboards along I-95 and on walls in ex-industrial areas of Philly. I’d read about Simmons’ work when The Atlantic Cities caught up with him to talk about his Urban Land Project. Then I found myself in Northern Liberties, walking past a few of his pieces.

To Simmons, urban dwellers can have an out-of-sight-out-of-mind disconnection to environmental conservation. He told The Atlantic Cities’s Nate Berg: Globalization, industrialization and technological progress are the sculptors of the modern landscape. The juxtaposition of my imagery against this backdrop aims to accentuate the tension between the human and natural worlds by offering a moment of engagement. The Urban Land Project pieces were designed to be temporary, so to catch these images before they disappear, check out the locations on this map:

View Urban Land Project in a larger map