Treasure Island

Treasure Island (2020-24) grew out of a 2022 residency with the San Francisco Arts Commission, which invited him to document the transformation of the 400-acre manmade island as the former naval base is redeveloped into a new neighborhood. Working with his large-format camera obscura, a handmade camera so large it is towed on a trailer, Chiara exposed images directly onto Ilfochrome paper, producing unique positive prints that retain visible traces of the process. The photographs record the island’s perimeter roads and the Avenue of the Palms, with views toward the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline. Their saturated, golden color and large scale align the island, itself a constructed landmass, with the handmade nature of his cameras. The series was featured in Sea of Glass at Haines Gallery in 2024, and a selection was shown as poster prints on kiosks around San Francisco in 2023 as part of the Treasure Island Photo Documentation Project.