What We Leave Behind began with a long-running joke between Jessica and a close friend who works as an archaeologist: when a civilization disappears, what remains is often its gods and its garbage.

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The joke grew out of the kinds of discoveries that can reveal the most about a vanished people. A temple can show what they revered, while a rubbish heap can reveal how they actually lived. From there came a larger question: what are we leaving behind?

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The series takes that idea a step further. What if a place could absorb the moments that happened there and, after we were gone, those impressions took on a life of their own? What if the spirit left behind was shaped not by how we saw ourselves, but by the actions, choices, and events that made the deepest mark?

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Each work in What We Leave Behind imagines the creature or presence that might emerge from that accumulated history. The result may not be the legacy its inhabitants intended to leave.