The Oracle

With this performance I wanted to highlight what it’s like to carry all of the pressures and burdens of life: the tasks and goals and hardships and responsibilities we pick up over time and how it can seem like too much to bear sometimes. I wanted to convey that sense of burden and the feeling of being overwhelmed. Some of the items I pick up symbolize very really things like my pride flag and my school bag. Other things are less clear and more open for interpretation like the clothes and travel gear and camera equipment. Most importantly, I want the stress to be felt as my hands get over full. While its something I relate to I feel like many around me go through the same thing as well even if we don’t share our struggles or talk about it openly with one another. This was an important sentiment to explore for me personally and it kind of reflects my current reality. It was a unique experience being in front of the camera like that and there were stresses for me as I kept dropping things and having to rearrange them in my arms and hopefully that helps to reiterate my theme.

And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

Really, this is awesome work. 

“Making America Great” is meant to be a commentary on COVID and quarantine in the USA. From the beginning, the current administration (with fervent support from its base) has downplayed the reality and significance of what is now a pandemic. From selling stockpiles of PPE to other countries to undermining state efforts to obtain PPE to refusing to wear a mask himself, President Trump has consistently acted in a way to secure his own re-election over the safety of his constituents. Relatedly, while people have been trapped at home under quarantine, money has continued to be poured into the border wall. Trump’s base has followed his lead and, like the president, put their own interests over the health and safety of the country as a whole. As a whole, I intended this piece to be a reflection of the selfishness, waste, isolation, division, and even nonchalant brutality of current times. This was originally performed live on Facebook. This recording was edited for time and was flipped as it was originally recorded as a mirror image.

My one change would be to maybe have the camera a little closer to you so you can really see the objects that are going into the trash. 

The concept is so strong because the viewer really gets dizzy with you. We cant help it! 

I personally don’t find myself with my head in the clouds at the best of times. It’s important to me to stay grounded and focused. But, in times like these, it’s difficult not to let my mind wander off. The uncertainty makes it easy to worry or stress about a lot of different things. For this piece I laid back to stare up at the clouds and just immerse myself in the moment. The ambient noises of my neighborhood snapping me out of my thoughts every so often. I wanted the mirror to show not only what I was seeing, but its positioning related to my head being an on the nose nod to the title of this piece and common phrase. The framing was important to me, splitting with half ground and half sky. Symbolizing where my head was at mentally while resting there physically as well. With everything going on in the world today it’s easy to get overwhelmed, I wanted to capture a moment of just taking a step back and escaping for a while. I debated on making it a time-lapse but decided against it at the end, the ambiance felt more immersive to me. 

This is my public intervention project part II, and applied as my performance art piece in its disassembly.  This piece has been in my yard for a good minute, and while the interaction with my community was more in seeing the passersby stop and look, mostly with smiles, some with gawking irritation, I was happy with the overall public response.  I had some kids volunteer to talk to me, and that became the highlight of the process for me. As I stated in my artist statement for the installation, this is an important and critical issue for the future of humankind on the planet, and we have to pay attention.  The issue has been casually regarded, and individualizing the issue, giving people the impression that it is enough to recycle, and that will solve the problem is misleading.  The issue is far reaching and all industries are needing to respond to the issue with urgency.  Recycling on an individual effort  will not take care of it, and just that will not slow production or the processes that are in place in manufacturing.  This is an industry issue that can only be powerfully addressed through consumer choices.  Do not support companies with irresponsible policies, and products not easily disassembled for component recycling and reuse.   This is a movement of consumerism and the choices that we make in our purchasing, as much as it is an issue of effort to help an overwhelming issue in its scope.

I wanted to illustrate that you don’t have to be a stout member of an organized religion in order to be able to attain heaven and that those organizations don’t have a corner on the market for salvation. Through a gorilla style art installation on the foot steps of a church that preaches ‘only one way to enter the kingdom’ I wanted to give a public access to those elements of salvation. You don’t have to be inside the four walls, swearing your soul to a dogma, fitting into a tidy and manipulative theology in order to be take be holy. It was so interesting to see how people interacted with my installation. It seemed to invoke in others (and through watching and filming, myself also) a desire to reconnect with a higher power or to sort of rekindle those feelings of holy acceptance. My goal was that anyone; no matter their class, creed, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, or ability, might find the idea of salvation acceptable just where they were on Logan and Colfax. No Kingdom shouting down at them in anger, and nobody to own the market on heaven.

Natural beauty vs. fabricated beauty, what does it mean to be beautiful? For my project I decided to juxtapose natural found beauty with invented beauty. Social media is full of beautiful things and beautiful people, but what does it really mean? This piece developed after my friends and went on a long hike, they took pictures of the view and of themselves and immediately posted them on Instagram. I found myself wondering about what it means to be beautiful in the modern age. Like always, my work has a distinctly feminine undertone that deals with the pressures and expectations of being a woman. There is beauty in everything, and in every person, but it is time we challenge the norms and accept beauty for what it is, instead of trying to squeeze it in some big out of place dress.

Anyway- love this project. 

My inspiration for this installation piece was the impact of waste on our environment. I wanted to demonstrate how waste doesn’t just go away, it stays and impacts our environment in very negative ways. Only 8-9% of all recyclable material is actually recycled. The rest of the waste ends up in landfills. Think about that, 9%. Now think about how much waste you accumulate per month, and multiply that waste by the billions and billions of humans on Earth who also accumulate waste. A lot of the materials I chose to use for this piece were single use plastics, such as bottles and to go containers. My intention to viewers is to raise awareness on the seriousness of the global issues regarding waste. Specifically, I wanted to target Americans with using the “Make Earth Great Again” slogan, rewriting Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

For my intervention project, I wanted to attempt to focus on the theme of communication. Because of the COVID virus, it has become paramount for our safety to take actions to isolate ourselves as much as we can, in order to do our part in stopping the spread of the illness. And even though we are still connected via the internet, calls, messages, and our mail, many of us are struggling with being separated indefinitely from those closest to us, and aren’t receiving the messages that might help us the most through this difficult time; those of personal and emotional support. This brings me to my project itself. For my project, I created pages of short quotes and positive messages, and then cut them into small pieces one could grab. Then, I mixed them up, and put them in an envelope and attached it with tape to the mailboxes, where everyone comes to get some of their messages. I personally know how much just a bit of encouragement can help someone, I wanted to do something simple for my neighborhood while also exploring my theme.

(The side with the words was facing the oncoming traffic but I wasn’t able to snap a picture without standing in the middle of the street)