Homecoming
We are undeniably entangled with our more-than-human world through our impact on it and, in return, its impact on us. Amid the apathy towards environmental concerns, I hope to inspire a moment of consciousness to pause, notice, and be mindful of these tangles, maybe even pull at them. Drawing our attention to the environment that we take for granted, the things worth preserving.
Materials such as the grass roots present in “Homecoming” prime viewers to engage with issues, such as biodiversity, that threaten our world including us. Like the grass roots, all the materials in this piece will decay including the coco fiber baskets, returning the soil, plants, and organisms they held to the earth. Using living materials and through site-specific interventions my pieces evolve into decaying and dynamic systems, echoing the natural world. By interrupting our expectations of nature, art can rekindle our sense of wonder and enchantment with the entangled world we are a part of.
Much of the human experience consists of our relationships with the external world beyond our interiors. Our continued isolation from and exploitation of the natural, external world has prevented us from connecting with and valuing the life around us. We have untangled ourselves from our regional environments, our biota, resulting in direct and patchy changes in our global and regional ecology and, through constructs such as suburbs, become untangled and isolated from each other. Like the soil isolated from its larger self in baskets, maybe we need to let some things, like our unsustainable grass lawns and the alienating suburbs where we grow them, decay.
Materials: Grass root Mats, Coco Fiber Basket, Earth, Rope
Creation Year: 2024
Size: Site-specific, 14” baskets, height variable
Photography by Tian Yang