“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

-Tom Robbins

I want to design and build site-specific sustainable interactive installations that function as playgrounds for adults and children: playscapes. I envision these playscapes to act as inspirational spaces: play and playfulness are important catalysts for cultural growth. The ability to play marks a shift in focus from merely surviving to living with imagination and aspiration.

Through the intersection of whimsical art, structural design and new technologies (e.g., power generating flooring, IR interaction and flexible display systems) these playscapes can become centers for creative and physical exploration. Playgrounds have the potential to change how children see their role in the world. An empowering environment can give them a greater sense of possibilities: once a child, or adult, has learned they are capable of climbing a jungle gym, they wonder what else they could summit. If their environment told them they could generate electricity or change the colors of their world at a touch, what else might it inspire?

I began to more deeply explore the concept of physicality while engaging in the world of performance art. I am an aerialist, hoop dancer, and circus instructor, and I studied clown (physical theatre) and dance. As a teacher, I help people express themselves through

movement. I love the process of guiding my students through their creative and physical development, and I am excited to create playscapes that encourage the same types of growth.

The physical nature of my performance and teaching brought my visual art into a new focus: it became more tactical and interactive. For my installation “Wading,” I inundated a hallway with hundreds of hand-formed fetuses stuffed into menstrual red balloons, forcing people to interact with the installation in order to traverse the hallway. “Wading” addressed the pressures women face regarding reproduction: its goal was to evoke a strong feeling of unease and pressure in participants as they interacted with the work, emulating the sense of unease that women feel under social pressure. Creating “Wading” strengthened my desire to recreate public spaces with installation art.

This desire led me to seek out a design apprenticeship with Gerard Minakawa of BambooDNA, who creates large-scale architectural installations using bamboo and fabric. These installations are often interactive: they tend to be climbable and have a wonderful sense of whimsy. During my apprenticeship, I learned to construct elegant and structural art from bamboo, practiced implementing the design process, and strengthened my project management skills.

Working with Minakawa also gave me the unique opportunity to connect with other installation artists working with a playful sense of whimsy. Chad Gaetz of Alchemy Arts Collective and I collaborated on projects for music festivals, creating large climbing flowers, glowing sea monsters and other environments. Through Gaetz, I met Mar Rickets of Guildworks, and worked with him to install a massive aerial shade structure. Most recently, I

have been managing the build and building a four-story geodesic treehouse in Healdsburg, California designed by Dustin Feider at O2 Treehouse. All of these jobs were taken to learn alternative methods of construction and research possible techniques for application in the creation of my own playscapes. After studying practical design and how to implement the concepts of other artists, I now want to focus on my own practice.

Play and playfulness are core elements in my work—they allow me to address serious concepts while remaining palatable and engaging. Even my chosen mediums reflect my affinity for play: I often incorporate various deconstructed artifacts of childhood (bouncy balls, balloons, toy capsules) while working with a variety of expressions, including interactivity, light and invasiveness. Political themes recur frequently in my thinking, since they are so relevant to my life and the struggles I’ve witnessed or experienced. I am drawn to such topics as pregnancy, abortion, social pressures, body image, physical touch, and uncomfortable moments. However varied the themes, my work always comes back to utilizing play and playfulness to engage the viewer.

I am interested in ITP both as a tool in creating my playscapes and as the next step in my artistic growth. I am drawn to the program for its rigorous focus on technology in the application of art, the diversity of its students, and its collaborative environment. As much as I am looking for guidance from the faculty at ITP I am also excited by the prospect of learning through collaborating with my peers.

In my past work, I have attempted to accomplish the roles of ten people (designing, coding, building, and electronic fabrication), and my designs suffered due to my singular perspective

and simple programing. I want to move away from mono-perspective creation and into more collaborative work bringing together teams of diverse and passionate creators to make playful, profound and inspiring work. Presently this is represented in my practice as my developing concept for pop-up playscapes.