I am interested in the realm of everyday material culture as a place of social engagement, critical thinking, and activism. I tip my hat to the old cabinets of wonder, but with a contemporary, critical twist. The dictionary tells me that the etymology of “curate” is to care for, and “exhibit” comes from to hold out. What I want to do is care for this world by holding out offerings – to curate the complex and boundless museum of meaning that is our everyday world. My dream is to find, or make, something so striking that, when I open my clasped hands and reveal it to you, your world is turned upside down, you fill with possibility, and your eyes start to twinkle.
My work plays with an understanding of how the realm of material culture works, offering up what I call “artifactual actions,” or invitations to personal and social change. It is about the constitution of experiences and interactive story-making with “things.” I investigate what things mean, what things used to mean, what things might mean, and how these meanings play out in the flesh of the world – how these meanings matter. Caring for this world also entails considering how power shapes and colors it.
Basic needs: food, water, clothing, shelter. Despite their seeming simplicity, the provision of our basic needs is actually a very complicated political, ecological, and personal issue. Moreover, we have needs beyond these; we need poetry, community, delight, shadows. I try to reveal the poetry and politics of the mundane – to bring things back to life through the reanimation of supposedly “inanimate objects.”
Sometimes a new thing, or artifact, needs to be created to present a certain invitation. Other times, an interesting artifact already exists and the “art” is the process of pointing it out – letting old things speak in new ways. And while I am committed to the “thing,” objet d’art and objet trouvé, I am also committed to curating – or caring for – the life of the thing as well. This means considering the relationships, experiences, and contexts that keep certain possibilities for meaning in (around? on? through?) the physicality of the thing – that keep a thing from becoming hollow and invisible.
How do old ways of thinking/feeling/doing unravel, and how do new meanings cohere? I am looking for the cracks and seams where our everyday realities suddenly (or perhaps slowly) split open and offer us new possibilities for living. Art is the necessary revealing of that which we have overlooked and – perhaps quite precariously – taken for granted. Being only human, it is exceedingly difficult to catch a glimpse of our deepest assumptions from within; we need each other to dangle curios in front of our eyes. If there is a promised land, I am convinced that it begins right under our nose.
I want my art to be a different kind of “activism” – an appeal to the playful heart of humanity. Most people don’t want to hear about your cause and sign your petition, but they will stop to consider something strange and marvelous. I am trying to create accessible experiences by playing with the relationship between the ordinary and the extraordinary. I invite people to think critically with me about the world and our place in it. How can a complex consideration begin in a package as accessible and inviting as a teacup or a shirt?
If I were to brand my artwork in the spirit of industrial capitalism, I would call it: Poetically Designed Artifacts for Everyday Insights™. Mass-production is a recurring theme, and sometimes reappropriating mass-produced items is my way of saying: Humans are essentially not mass-producable. Other times, it is more of a journalistic endeavor, revealing problems wrapped up in, for example, global clothes manufacturing. If consumerism has trumped true democracy, then I would like to bring democracy into the shopping malls. People say that ours is a very materialistic culture. I am trying to present an alternative meaning and practice of “materialistic” – one that is soul-full instead of soul-less. How might “materialistic” become a compliment about being insightfully and responsibly attuned to the sensuous world we inevitably inhabit?