"A Demographic Case Study (35-44, woman, Baltimore)" is an archive of every ad that I viewed on Instagram over a one-week period. Composed of 126 images that almost exclusively depict household goods, the archive presents a self-portrait through the lens of targeted advertising. Objects ranging from rugs to sofas to earrings to soap portrayed amidst orderly, plant-filled, sun-dappled rooms, suggest affluence, aesthetic integrity, and a good night of sleep. The work calls attention to everyday technologies by upsetting the usual means of interaction while also functioning as a playful critique in order to explore how identity is reduced by consumerism. This work was exhibited in my solo exhibition "This is Who I Am Now" at H-Space in Washington, DC.

"Ad Words" is a companion text for my solo exhibtion "This is Who I Am Now" at H-Space in Washington, DC. The book features 11 AI-generated poems based on captions from "A Demographic Case Study," an archive of 126 ads I viewed on Instagram during a one-week period.

"Accumulations" consists of one-of-a-kind objects and images displayed in white frames, including torn wrapping paper, yellow tissues, a map, and pine needles, among other things. The work was exhibited alongside the installation of Instagram ads in my solo exhibition and acts as an alternative self-portrait.

Home Office is a Virtual Backgrounds Package made up of images taken in my home during the first three months of quarantine due to COVID-19. The images offer an opportunity to invite others into my home when that possibility has become a threat to public health. Each image is 72dpi and measures 1920 x 1280 pixels (3:2 aspect ratio).

Homestead is an interdisciplinary project that situates my matrilineage alongside larger notions of landscape, home, and gender. In 1873, ten miles south of my native Nebraska and an hour's drive from the geographic center of the United States, my great-great-great-grandparents claimed land under the Homestead and Timber Culture Acts. The landscape is now vast, indistinguishable farmland. History reveals more absences than answers. Two 150-year-old trees at the site and a enarby pioneer cemetery where my maternal granmother, her mother, and her mother's mother are all buried, are vague markers of this history. In my return to this land, my matrilineage is subsumed by Mother Nature. The work archives and memorializes what remains of this place­­­­—personally significatn and universally forgtten­­­­—while considering the ways certain histories are privileged over others. 

DIRT considers the way land is defined and occupied. Using a vintage RISK board game, I replaced the army pieces with various seeds and the deck of cards with an accordion book that incorporates visual elements of the natural world and the nostalgia of childhood. The board itself became a three-dimensional garden in the way of a pop-up book that uses images cut from used gardening books. Flowers, bushes, and trees are pieced together in shapes and colors that mimic the countries outlined on the board. Finally, the rule book is replaced with a meditation on the plants that define the experience of my childhood home. DIRT was purchased by the Decker Library at Maryland Institue College of Art.

Things I Don’t Remember considers the experience of a tourist and is a reflection on my first trip to Montreal in 2008. In returning to the city over a decade later, I couldn’t remember anything from having been before, so I went back to my own Facebook archive where I found four photographs I had taken there: the façade of an nondescript building, a pair of red doors with yellow awnings, a selfie with a stick of maple taffy in my mouth, and a caramel latte with whipped cream. Souvenir in French can refer to both a keepsake one might buy as a tourist as well as memory itself. With this in mind, I used the first photograph I posted from Montreal in 2008 and enlarged it to the size of 168 postcards. Of these, viewers see only six fragments of the image and are invited to take one from the stacks on display. If a memory is something we remember, what is something we don’t remember?

For Apartment 404 Not Found I moved my home into the gallery. I then documented the installation as a 360-degree virtual reality (VR) image before removing all of the furniture. A half-circle "orientation table" similar to what you might find at a hilltop vista, sits in the center of the space, the absent objects depicted on its surface. The dislocation of relocation is exemplified by the juxtaposition of physically standing in a vacant space while viewing that same space in virtual reality filled with the belongings of home. The furniture from the installation—packed atop a moving pallet, wrapped in plastic—became a sculptural object alongside the VR installation. My home remained empty for the duration of the exhibition.

Through this collection of objects offered and acquired for ‘free to a good home’ on Craigslist, I construct an image of home based on the things within it. Everyday objects gain importance through personal histories and associations. At times poetic, at times mundane, the pages within document the ads and subsequent email exchanges, offering a glimpse into the online interactions of the anonymous. From a classic 1940s sofa to an underwater camera case, the ephemera of one home assumes life in another, each object connecting every home. Available for purchase at Printed Matter (New York, NY) and Amazon.com.