"Bumgarner’s series, one continuous present:, is concerned with the historical legacy of the 18th century plantation in Southern Maryland where he spent much of his childhood and also lived from 2010 to 2011. Using a handmade camera, he photographs this historically significant property, which was the site of a tragic fire in the slave quarters that has been immortalized in the poem Mulberry Fields by Lucille Clifton. He then subjects his developed prints to the ravages of time by burying them underground in the location where they were taken. Over an extended period of time, the land consumes the interred photographs, and the images physically merge with the landscape. The photographs are then “exhumed,” re-photographed and presented as large vistas, which are hand-waxed and polished by the artist. The final product literally represents the inevitability of decay and death, but at the same time, it embraces the possibility of building new and different histories at Mulberry Fields."
