The Canadian artist Julya Hajnoczky told me, “I have stood in old-growth forests listening to ravens and whins sing as the rain filters down through the canopy.” I’ve also walked in forest fire sites and listened to the Swainson’s throughshes’ flute like calls spiraling into the sky. “I’ve been in fog and smoke from wildfires so thick that it was difficult to breathe.”

Hajnoczky’s Mobile Natural History Collection Laboratory has been his office for the past five years. This lab-on wheels, also known as “the Alfresco Science Machine”, is a converted utility trailer that the artist has turned into a workspace and camper. She spent eight to 10 weeks per year between spring and autumn, on the road, exploring wild ecologies.

She collects samples of fungi and moss from each ecosystem, as well as grasses, dead insects, shells and other materials. Then, after extensive research, she creates miniature landscapes. The compositions are not “photographed”, in the conventional sense of using a camera. The artist instead uses a high resolution scanner.

Hajnoczky uses the scanner to capture an astounding level of detail. She transforms the smallest scenes into expansive and elaborate vistas. Her work is a tribute to nature during a period of dramatic change. She transforms living specimens into a new type of cabinet of wonders. The birds may be singing today, but they could be choking on smoke tomorrow. This knowledge is evident in the photos, which are infused with both a sense loss and wonder.

Hajnoczky’s work is more than just a feeling of loss. It inspires a physical longing to touch the earth, smell the flowers and hear the ravens. The artist inhaled sagebrush scents wafting across dry grasslands during her travels. She has listened to the sound of seedpods as they echoed like rattles, and grasshoppers hopping across a flaxseed plain. While searching for mussels and shells on the beach, she tasted the salty air. We can almost taste the salt in her photos.

Hajnoczky tells us more about her Mobile Natural History Collection Laboratory.