narratives

Throughout several projects during my graduate studies and with my thesis work, a short comic titled Thrilling 1999, I explore different aspects of the mind/world hyperobject; a concept I have created after Timothy Morton's notion of the "hyperobject". Hyperobjects are objects which have a complexity and vitality about them but you cannot apprehend them, such objects are like race, class, human life, or climate change. And they are massive and overwhelmingly difficult to map, discuss, and know. In my conception, each of us is a hyperobject. My work attempts to explore the hyperobject that engulfs my life and depicts feelings, ideas, and impressions I see about the world; speculations on so-called universal truths; and how the internal mind synchronizes with external phenomena.

This essay reflects on the history of structures that divide humans from the landscape and each other. It investigates the physical experiences of disconnection as well as the associated language and stories that shape a relationship to the environment. Research of social sculpture, disengagement and late wave environmental artists are the tools used to support a deeper investigation of the legacy of Johnny Appleseed. The work includes the process of beginning of 50 apple seedlings, sprouted and nurtured in the studio, and a participatory gallery installation of narratives that draw attention to land use, ownership and the migratory nature of both plants and humans. A composition of sculpture, book and interaction highlights aspects of this relationship that might go unnoticed but have profound consequences on our culture.

This thesis suggests a template for the artist-in-community as described by African American novelist Toni Morrison; presents an approach to space/place in light of both white Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan's assertions about the effects of media on human experience and African American social theorist Patricia Hill Collin's description of safe-spaces as used by Black women in the United States; places my work in conversation with the work of established contemporary artists whose claimed identities, similar to my own, place them at the margins of American society to, as Latino artist Félix González Torres said, "(open) up the terms of the argument, and (re-address) the issue of quality and who dictates and defines 'quality'"; and posits that, given their missions, relationships with their communities, and my personal experiences with them, libraries and library-like spaces are metaphors and appropriate places for my work to enter into the community-based conversations that drive my practice.