A Participatory Universe is a photographic installation project that examines how framing constructs value. I insert a three-sided black aluminum frame directly into overlooked landscapes — infrastructural edges, transitional zones, sites typically passed without notice — and photograph the result.

The work draws from the Observer Effect in physics: the understanding that observation alters what is observed. Physicist John Wheeler wrote, "We are not only observers. We are participants." Taking this as both metaphor and method, the frame becomes a literal intervention. It isolates a portion of landscape while exposing the act of selection itself.

Framing is among photography's most basic gestures, yet it is also an assertion of consequence. What enters the frame is granted attention; what falls outside remains peripheral. By inserting a physical frame into the environment, the project foregrounds this hierarchy and asks whether sustained attention can change the standing of what has been culturally overlooked — whether looking, deliberately and long enough, is itself a form of participation.

The resulting images sit between document and proposition: records of an intervention and reflections on how images organize meaning.

Project represented by Modern West Fine Art, Salt Lake City. For inquiries, contact the shalee@modernwestfineart.com