Residency 3- "Go Back To Where You Came From"

I like to think of my artistic practice as a type of provocation, a sort of dangerous question that can disrupt and transform my own, and hopefully others, long held beliefs, perceptions and concepts. My work is about working with the unknown, the lost, denied, repressed, or just the unconscious aspects of our mind and human life. I am interested in exploring, naming and bringing to light all the aspects of our ordinary/extraordinary human life in all its messiness, horror and beauty. My aim is transformational, to transform both my own pain, confusion and blindness as well as others, into a greater sense of wisdom, peace and connection - a type of radical inclusivity. My work generally starts with a question that I wrestle/live with and I see what arises in my everyday life and materials in response to that. In this installation the phrase I worked with was "Go Back To Where You Came From." During the process certain objects reached out to me and I was drawn to transform them into the 'weave' of the experience. Often materials and people will be incorporated in a collaborative way. This work is the genesis of a collaboration with the sound poet Melissa Silva who created a sound poem, a type of lament for the piece. It evokes a sense of going back in time, or a trip to the land of the dead, a visit to ancestors and the past in order to gain wisdom and be released from a burden. When working with a question I create a container in my mind of the question, and let everything arise in life as a response or engagement with that question. One might think of the container more as a form of holding, and less in the sense of a restriction; as a cup holds tea for the body’s nourishment. Alchemy also has significance in this metaphor where you contain certain ingredients together and ‘heat’ them over time to allow for them to transform - base into gold. For example, in this installation the question I worked with is “go back to where you came from.” I would hold the question in my mind and let it dialogue with my everyday activities and life. When I was washing dishes, I might say to the dishes, “go back to where you came from!” And then I would allow the dishes to respond and tell me the story of where they came from, how they came into being. Also, I love to forage around dumps, used furniture stores, salvage areas, and see what objects resonate with the question - which objects call out to be picked up and rescued from obsolescence, from the debris heap? I bring them back to my studio and set them up somewhere. I have no idea how they will work with the piece, I trust that they belong somewhere, or will help me or be important in some small or large way. They are like a type of ancestor or guide or mentor. A bit of the universe reaching out to help me see some hidden area of life or of my unconscious, or of the collective unconscious of the world. Often the question will evoke a sound, melody or images spontaneously, and I will incorporate that sensibility into the work. I work blind, I don’t know what I am really doing, except that I keep holding the question and trust that, as Kiki Smith says, “If I take care of my art, it will take care of me”. Sometimes I reach out to others to work on the question with me and ask to collaborate, as perhaps with a sound poet, musician or dancer. It is a dangerous voyage into the unknown as I don’t know how the question will transform me or my relationship with the world, but I know that I want it to transform me in a profound sense of mutuality. I am also very interested in the idea of mundane, overlooked labor, especially of women and the idea of deep time. Much of my work involves labor intensive practices such as sewing. I feel the idea of repeated, everyday ‘touch’ to be important, but not the touch of a stroke of genius, but one of utter ordinariness. Furthermore, a repetitive, laborious, mundane, tasks like sewing is ripe for losing one’s mind in a sense of timelessness. I hope that when one enters the space of my work there is a certain activation of this feeling of deep time, of a voyage asked to be taken, and a question that might be dangerous and liberating all at the same time.