Driven by my wild curiosity and research, my work spans across design, visual art and participatory, pedagogic settings. Through deepening my involvement in practices of care, intersectional ecology and my lived experience of queerness, I aim to discover and create new textures of interconnectedness anchored in the time and land I inhabit.
My design education and experience enables me to observe the global pattern of unjust extraction and distribution of resources that shapes our world, and the culture of disposal it creates. We dispose of possessions, ideas, living beings, landscapes, knowledge etc, as the shape of our world has taught us to eliminate the option to rely on our individual and collective capacity for care.
As a transdisciplinary designer, I purposefully entangle my work with this complex reciprocity between humans and the world, mediated by design.
Despite my work fitting the broad field of visual art, I insist on using the language of design, as I believe that contemporary design practices have elevated the eco-social and political relevance of this discipline and unlocked a potential which I am thrilled to explore further.
My work is materialized through objects such as installations, drawings, digital media, text and collaborative pedagogic situations, in a process akin to prototyping - developing models for embodiment and speculation, in pursuit of insights into the way humans relate to the more than human world. The format of prototyping allows unformed ideas to be tested, focusing on the core concepts or principles that they give shape to, instead of their finished form.
Born out of a very personal and intimate place, I am currently following a deep interest in, and drive towards, aliveness. Originating inside of ourselves, aliveness can feel like a fountain; the strongest, most tender thread which runs through all of our world.
Yet, assuming that aliveness is inherently joyful has been the low-hanging fruit in this process. In following this interest I have found a powerful aliveness in grief, care and effort too. I have experienced my heart break only to open my eyes to a newer, more vibrant landscape.
Tracing the footsteps of Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the erotic”, I am not simply interested in aliveness for aliveness’ sake. I am interested in how our own animating force is entangled with that of our world, how it can be liberated and channeled into fueling not just our own lives, but all the ways in which we take care of each other.
January, 2024