The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

http://www.terragalleria.com/blog/coyote-creek-trail-project

After spending a quarter-century photographing the vast, iconic landscapes of America’s national parks, I turned my attention to the landscapes of my own city, San Jose, California. This shift in my practice mirrors an evolution in environmental thought: from conserving distant wilderness to embracing an inclusive ecology that acknowledges the complex, intertwined relationship between human life and the natural world.

Within walking distance of my home, the Coyote Creek Trail—a paved recreational path bordered by a narrow strip of nature—weaves through the suburbs and between developments for twenty miles. Neither remote nor pristine, the trail is not a destination for awe. Yet, through sustained attention, its fragile beauty emerges, awakening a sense of wonder for the wildness in our own backyard. Over a decade of returning to this trail, I’ve become attuned to its changes over time—seasonal rhythms, wildlife patterns, and the cycles of drought and flood that shape Coyote Creek.

These changes also include the transient human presence along the trail. The creek’s watershed has been shaped by dams and engineering, and for many years, it was home to the largest homeless encampment in America. Though the Jungle has been cleared, makeshift shelters continue to appear and disappear with little notice. For some, the trail is a place to pass through; for others, it is a home in the most literal sense. The fleeting nature of these camps, and the lives that inhabit them, mirrors the ephemerality of the landscape itself.

This work is a meditation on a place where the boundaries between the wild and the human blur, capturing both natural beauty and the human stories embedded in the landscape. In the hope of inspiring an appreciation for even the smallest patches of wildness in our midst, I aim to evoke the wonder that can be found in the overlooked, moving beyond the distant and untouched to embrace the lived-in, the intervened-upon, and the local. In the Coyote Creek Trail, I have found a place that reflects universal themes of transformation—of nature, of people, and of how we understand our complex place within the land.

California faces a severe homelessness crisis fueled by high housing costs and a chronic shortage of affordable housing. The state has the highest percentage of unsheltered homeless people in the nation, with two-thirds living on the streets, in encampments, or in their cars. In San Jose, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, thousands of unhoused residents live along waterways like Coyote Creek. Once home to The Jungle, the nation’s largest encampment until its 2014 closure, the creek remains a fragile sanctuary for the unhoused, despite ongoing efforts to displace them. Since 2014, I have visited the Coyote Creek Trail well over a hundred times, initially drawn to its natural beauty. Over the past two years, my work has also focused on the creek’s residents, particularly along the 12-mile stretch slated for clearing beginning in January 2025. Local policies, bolstered by a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to clear encampments without shelter alternatives, have intensified efforts to displace these communities. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board has mandated that San Jose remove encampments from sensitive areas by June 2025, threatening steep fines for noncompliance. Meanwhile, the Santa Clara Valley Water agency has banned camping along 295 miles of creeks, further narrowing the options for those who call the creek home. A significant part of this project documents this pivotal moment through intimate portraits and environmental imagery, focusing on the lives of individuals within the targeted area. The work reveals resilience, community, and vulnerability amidst systemic upheaval, juxtaposing personal stories with the broader forces reshaping their lives. It exposes the human cost of policies that prioritize environmental restoration while neglecting the root causes of homelessness. Viewers are challenged to confront the stark inequalities in one of the world’s most prosperous regions and to consider urgent questions about compassion, justice, and the moral imperative to protect both people and the environment, offering an unflinching look at life on the margins.