Site-specific participatory art project, video, audio, augmented reality mobile app

losingwinter.net

Losing Winter is a site-specific, participatory artwork and archive of memories and emotions about winter, revealing the personal and cultural ties we have to the season and providing a window onto what we are collectively losing due to climate change impacts on seasonal patterns. The project addresses the phenomenon of environmental amnesia, wherein with each new generation the changed or degraded state of the environment is perceived as normal, by preserving personal memories about the season as it was in the past in a particular location. The project is activated through the participation of local communities, site-specific exhibitions, and virtually through a dedicated augmented reality mobile application. Losing Winter was first realized with the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, Romania in 2018 and has since been realized in several other iterations. Each activation of the project is unique and site-specific.

Site-specific artwork, geo-referenced photographs, public displays, website, community workshops

uncultivated.info
Uncultivated is a site-specific, scalable project focused on wild plants within urban landscapes. The project draws attention to plant species that are typically rejected as weeds but which are able to thrive in the harsh conditions we have created in cities and are increasingly found around the world. Each photograph has a corresponding webpage containing detailed information on all the plants appearing in them, the location, and the date it was taken. Public displays show images taken in the vicinity of the display venue and workshops are hosted in collaboration with the local communities in which the project is realized. 

Ecomimesis

Site-specific virtual reality environment

Ecomimesis is a site-specific VR environment containing animated virtual plants that offers viewers an intimate encounter with growing plants in an accelerated life-cycle. The species featured is Conyza canadensis, a common urban ‘weed’ chosen for its prevalence in human crafted landscapes that is at same time often 'invisible' to most people as they choose to ignore such so-called nuisance species. The project is designed to be customized for the venue in which it is shown so the architecture of the space is represented within the animation. Ecomimesis was inspired by Charles Darwin's The Power of Movement in Plants in which Darwin documents his observations of how plants move as they grow.  

Ecobiont

Video, audio

Ecobiont is a triptych of visual stories focused on the physical labor and maintenance involved in scientific research, featuring scientists and staff at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore. A modification of the word holobiont, ‘ecobiont’ is a system that encompasses the networks of microorganisms, animals, plants, technology, and human culture, as aspects of evolutionary change. Ecobiont features three parts of the sustainable land-based aquaculture system being developed and refined at IMET, which due to massive overfishing and the collapse of fish populations around the world, will likely play a large role in how humans obtain fish for food in the future.

Unique gelatin silver solar photograms

The images in the Diluvian series were created using expired black and white photographic paper and lengthy solar exposures. These unique cameraless, contact prints feature shadowy images of discarded electronics, which persist in the environment long after their obsolescence, juxtaposed with organic materials, highlighting their vastly different rates of decay. 

Photographs and text

Baltic Portraits is a trilingual project situated at the intersection between the genres of portraiture and landscape. The project consists of a series of fifty portraits of residents of Liepaja, Latvia, standing at the edge of the Baltic Sea displayed with a quote about the role the sea plays in their lives, along with eight long-exposure photographs of the sea taken just after sunset. Latvia is one of the three Baltic countries, with a complex history of occupation by Nazi Germany and the USSR for a majority of the 20th century. The Baltic Sea forms Latvia's border on its western side while Russia borders its eastern side. With tensions with Russia currently erupting across the region, the Baltic Sea is a visible reminder of the vulnerability of this small country.

Photograph, text, audio, community collaboration

Portrait Garden is a metaphorical garden of 'portraits' of eleven women incarcerated at Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, a multilevel security prison. Portrait Garden used environmental stewardship as a tool for self-reflection and resulted in the creation of three perennial gardens on the prison grounds. The display of the project consists of a collection of photographic prints of the cultivated plants paired with text and audio statements from each woman.

Time and location sensitive animation, custom software

Junkspace is a time and location sensitive animation that dynamically visualizes space debris tracking data, using images of earth-bound electronic waste as stand-ins for debris in orbit above the viewer. Using custom software, orbital debris tracking data, and the user’s location, the movement of animated e-waste on screen aligns with the path of pieces of debris in orbit above the user’s location. The project draws attention to a central problem of technological innovation: objects that persist in the environment long after their functional and stylistic obsolescence. The project originally also existed as an iOS app. 

Pigment ink jet prints and Fuji Crystal Archive prints

Discard is a body of work consisting of several discrete series of photographic prints featuring movie films discarded by public institutions (libraries, schools, archives). Harking back to the 19th century practice of postmortem photography, each print serves as a memento mori to an obsolete film. More generally, the series reflects on the often arbitrary process that determines whether cultural artifacts are preserved or discarded. 

Installation of 140 Lightjet prints, video, viewer-activated audio, ink jet prints

Story of M presents the viewer with fragmented details (images, sounds, films) of an anonymous man’s life across several decades of time. These various elements set the stage for multiple narratives to be constructed – the shape of any one story reflecting back to the viewer their own subjective “M”. The viewer's movement in the second room of the installation randomly triggers one of 200 audio clips to play, incorporating them into the shaping of the work.

Chromogenic photographs and photograms

Plaids combines super-eight movie film and a labor-intensive, hand-made process. Each print in the series was made from dozens of individually developed and toned strips of super-eight movie film woven together, each containing a mini-narrative embedded within the film frames. These sequences feature short performances by the artist as well as frames from found footage. These images are 'photographs' of film which at first glance are abstract, referencing pixels, paintings, and textiles.