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In this body of work, I focused on creating opportunities for experiencing/being in/with the more than human world and patient, sustained listening. I usually move too fast to pay attention to the many more than human lives with whom we all coexist in symbiosis and in this work, I am still.
This work was developed while I was an artist in residence in northern Finland, I spent most of my time in forested and marchy lands, dense with lichen and mosses, and mosquitos, and in an abandoned quarry, an eerie, sandy, boulder strewn place—evidence of the ocean that used to cover this area. At once both nature and rupture. It’s extremely quiet there— to my human ears —I heard only the wind that blows through the sand dunes and the loud buzzing of flies. To help me hear better, I fashioned headphones out of rocks, and a rock-weighted belt, which encouraged me to be still, to listen.
With the rock headphones, I heard the vibrations within and in between the rocks, and the naturally amplified sound of the wind. I heard my breathing, and the beat of my pulse; the percussive backbeat to the composition of the wind.
Part of my research has been to be still and sense the sun and the wind and present myself to the boulders as part of their family— all of us made of the same essential elements. They endure and age with grace and power. I am trying to learn from them.
“And they will smile at our ignorance as they pick up their rucksacks and hike on up to read the newly deciphered lyrics of the lichen on the north face of Pike’s Peak.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Author of the Acacia Seeds, and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics
Posthumanism—a reimagining of humanity’s place in the world, and a recognition of the permeable boundaries between species, the potency of symbiosis, and the vibrancy of all life forms—is a philosophy to live by. Symbiosis is a profoundly intimate relationship, responsible for the success of life on this planet, including our own. As a member of this planet, I am a symbiote: receptive and porous, both physiologically and mentally.
Statement:
In my practice and research, I imagine extending my senses to understand the experiences and sensations of other life forms. If I could feel like the other, wouldn’t I treat the other with respect and value their life? I believe that acknowledging our entangled interdependence will bring us a saner future—an alternative to our current destructive state of separation from nature. I envision a future that bridges the rift between humanity and our ecosystem, fostering a collaborative way of living in which all species exist respectfully within a complex, interdependent network.
My studio practice spans performance, interventions, video, sculpture, multimedia installation, and collaboration. Most recently, I have become captivated by eco-acoustics, which sharpens sensitivity to the unseen and unheard species living and growing all around us. When I record the natural world—capturing the sounds of lichen, rocks, or wind moving through trees—I feel a wild, visceral connection to it, as vibrations resonate through my skull via my headphones. I am increasingly aware of my aging body, learning to appreciate it as both a metaphor for our ancient planet and a record of time—a collapsed timescale compared to the slow growth of lichen or the gradual formation of sedimentary layers, yet a record, nonetheless. I value art as a way to communicate ideas, present potent possibilities, and grant permission to sit quietly in the world, recognizing our place in nature. Art may also serve as a tool. Author Amitav Ghosh, in The Great Derangement, argues that contemporary art has largely failed by rarely addressing the most pressing issue of our time—the global climate crisis. He writes: “When future generations look back upon the Great Derangement (Ghosh’s term for our inability to apprehend ecological cataclysm), they will certainly blame the leaders and politicians of this time for their failure to address the climate crisis. But they may well hold artists and writers to be equally culpable—for the imagining of possibilities is not, after all, the job of politicians and bureaucrats.”
I agree that we have failed to share a compelling creative vision to counter climate change. This is why I focus on making work that is making-with: collaborative, boundaryless, and open to change and growth.
