Through poetic sleight of hand, my work investigates with the negative emotional ramifications of and positive emotional responses to climate change and social injustice. Language, or signs, are a common medium in my work, though the ideas for what I create dictate the materials and forms I use. Many of my works have a purposeful ambiguity created through abstraction and juxtaposition which point toward the often unsettling and chaotic state of our planet and society.
Stress and its related problems – substance abuse, anxiety disorders, and depression – as well as emotions such as fear, anger, hopelessness, and exhaustion are subjective feelings and physiological responses created by climate change, social injustice, and their intersections.*
The social-political climate and dire environmental state of our society cause specific kinds of fear, anxiety, complacency, and hopelessness that are stultifying. In opposition to and persistence against these emotions, my work offers viewers, participants, and collaborators a physical embodiment of these emotions and a kind of care. My goal is to instill a complex emotional relationship with the phenomena. Thereby, my works skirt the conceptual divide between care and negative emotions, often intermixing in installations to reflect the constant oscillation between the forces.
I approach the concerns of climate change, social justice, and their intersections from a phenomenological point of view. Phenomenology offers us a lens to understand how phenomenon that permeate our culture, such as climate change and injustice, should not be accepted as things as they are or pre-determined outcomes; rather, they are understood as constructed and institutionalized. It is my goal as an artist to challenge these constructions and institutions by laying bare the reality of their manufacture and existence, provide creative tools by which people can persist and protest these institutions, and give space to a form of respite from them. The purpose of my work is to ask viewers not to ignore climate change, injustice, or their effects, but to confront their fears and anxieties, acknowledge how we are part of the issues, and find motivation and strength to be part of the solutions.
* Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance. American Psychological Association. 2017.