I move between individual and collective modes of practice to explore the haunting manifestations of racial inequity in the visual landscape and the possibilities of unraveling them using speculative and visual tactics. In my individual work, I examine the social dynamics and histories of specific sites and communities, with listening and inquiry as the starting point for creative reflection and making. I draw on the interplay of social & archival research and material exploration to create sculptural installations–often from a variety of paper-based media. I’m often motivated by the search for solidarities and interconnections between communities and ecologies at the edges of colonial empire.
I’m drawn to paper as the base for my ideas because of its ubiquity and ability to hold and give form to a variety of complex ideas. When utilized in constructing sculptures, it has a fragile quality–constantly on the edge of slow collapse as it warps over time–yet has a deceptive solidity when shaped to imperfectly mimic objects–inviting moments of slippage as audiences slowly realize what they are looking at–allowing for a range of material metaphors for systemic precarity and the haunting persistence of institutional power within a place. I’m also intrigued by the histories and material qualities of paper as a living object–a vehicle for communication, dissemination of ideas, documents of information, and mundane use. In conducting site research, I often begin by walking an area, collecting discarded and common paper goods as a vehicle to understand what flows through a place and what stories are evidenced in what has been left behind, and delving into archives or taking photographs so that those histories and visual markers are collected on paper surfaces. This gathered material then serves as a repository to build from, so that the sculptural process becomes a dialogue and acknowledgement of the existing landscape rather than looking to blank paper as a seemingly neutral and ahistorical territory for creation.
My collaborative projects often arise from long term relationship building and broader cultural advocacy and are typically more outwardly discursive, utilizing a mixture of curatorial tactics, engagement, and direct address to shape artistic production, such as my work as part of Related Tactics collective, an artistic collaboration between Michele Carlson, Nathan Watson, and myself. We create projects at the intersection of race and culture, exploring the connections between art, movements for social justice, and the public to foster mutual support and transformation. Our work has taken the form of temporary public installations; iterative, creative convenings between artists of color; and print & publication work that can be disseminated widely, over time.