My work reflects human and environmental vulnerability expressed in a variety of disciplines, from installation and performance art, to painting and photography exhibits, to dance and theatrical works, and to street interventions and video works. Most often, it is the message that dictates the medium.
Time-based projects such as Terra Temporalis, for example, involve the creation and destruction of large-scale ephemeral landscape drawings done on museum walls with just my fingertips and powdered graphite. At the end of the exhibition period, I perform a multidisciplinary ceremony (involving music, movement, vocalizing) while in the process of destroying the piece in front of the audience. Through my work I strive not to shock, but to engage the audience in the experience.
Critical to much of my work is raising awareness of important social and environmental issues. My preferred way of doing this is by collaborating with the public through interactive works – such as the Walk Unafraid, Seeing Red, and Collaborative Scroll projects – which also serve to empower participants as we address difficult topics that are often not talked about openly on a broad scale, such as child sexual abuse, domestic violence, homelessness, and discrimination.
Art has the power to transform and heal. I’ve not only experienced it myself, but have seen it happen before my eyes. By collaborating on public art projects with survivors, advocates, artists and educators, we are meeting at the intersection of the individual experience and democratically-generated solutions, a place where we come out of isolation and into community, to examine the personal and political aspects of the injustices we’re facing, and a space where innovative and effective solutions can emerge.
My research involves delving deeper into the more intimate aspects of human/environmental vulnerability and resilience where we uncover seeds for positive creative action.