Dissolving Histories (Saltwater and Hydroquinone) presents over 105 recordings of 105+ recordings centered around lost film negatives found on the Wards Island Bridge and documenting their gradual chemical decay after seven days submerged in a collected sample of polluted East River water. The archive captures the physical interaction between saltwater, pollutants, and photographic emulsion, in order to visually encapsulate environmental degradation through material and image decay.

The lost negatives of unknown origin, era, and location, seem to depict a family recording their home activities. As the photos undergo “souping"––a process where film alters and degrades after being soaked in liquid––they transform into flattened stand-ins for individuals affected by East River pollution. Each recording is paired with a caption sourced from archival New York Times clippings spanning 1911–2002 to provide a historical timeline of pollution in the river, underscoring the persistent and unresolved nature of these issues.

By physically organizing the negatives and captions chronologically and in a linear display, the archive traces the parallel progressions of environmental and material deterioration. The process is rooted in incidental design: the randomness of discovering the negatives, the organic transformations of material into new images, and the deliberate removal of the archivist from the act of creating and developing the film. This approach allows the work to speak to both anthropogenic activity and the unintended beauty found in decay.