I make work about interspecies kinship as specific to small scale farming in the Midwestern United States. In practice, I combine scholarly and field research, collaboration, performance, video, and sound, at the site of a small-scale family farm. My work is socially-engaged and the aesthetics vary from social to fine art. The work spans a variety of media, from site-specific installation and sculpture to live performance. Pieces occur and are shown in contexts ranging from pastures to galleries;, the setting of a small family farm emerges as a nuanced research site, at times complicated and others, bucolic.
My practice is primarily informed by theories and practices in contemporary art and human-animal studies. Kinship is contextualized in an anthropological sense; as a transmutable term that describes a spectrum of nurturing to exploitative bonds in a variety of situational contexts. My formative years were spent in barns, riding horses, and at summer-long riding camps; my research is informed by this lived experience. This practice extends a lifelong multispecies education through continued participation in farm work, as an equestrian, and through the development of long-term relationships with human and nonhuman collaborators.
My practice is primarily informed by theories and practices in contemporary art and human-animal studies. Kinship is contextualized in an anthropological sense; as a transmutable term that describes a spectrum of nurturing to exploitative bonds in a variety of situational contexts. My formative years were spent in barns, riding horses, and at summer-long riding camps; my research is informed by this lived experience. This practice extends a lifelong multispecies education through continued participation in farm work, as an equestrian, and through the development of long-term relationships with human and nonhuman collaborators.