ARTIST RESIDENCIES
BEE THE CHANGE RESIDENCY
with the Nancy Winship Milliken Studio
April 2020- Present
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During this residency, I worked with the Nancy Winship Milliken Studio, collaborating with Nancy Milliken and Emily Kiernan from Bee the Change to create artworks that reflect the plight of pollinators in the face of habitat destruction and climate change. Bee the Change is located in Vermont and works to convert working solar fields into pollinator habitat, transforming unused space into valuable land for wildlife.
During weekly Zoom meetings, we explored topics such as solar energy, directionality, habitat loss, ephemerality, field, ecosystem balance. Many ideas emerged from these conversations and we developed a series of visual and written works that reflect the importance of pollinators and the missions of Bee the Change.
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Below is the work I produced for Bee the Change during this residency. To see all the work and learn more about the residency, click here.
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Angles of Suspension
Bee shadow on flower
Fall 2020
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We cannot let pollinators become shadows. Shadows are ephemeral, they come and go with the sun and clouds, with dawn and dusk. Without light they cannot exist. Pollinators need proper habitat to survive, and like shadows, are dynamic and alive but face a temporary existence as we push their survival boundaries to the limit with urban expansion, land clearing, and consumptive habits. Here, photographed shadows are a suspension of time, an attempt at the preservation of pollinator populations by capturing an ephemeral moment.
Angles of Entanglement
Shadows on natural materials
Summer-Fall 2020
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This collection of photographs demonstrates the fragility of life and ecosystem balances in the ephemerality of dancing shadows. In merging the human and non-human it blurs the boundary we have created between human and non-human life, creating an invitation to see the ways in which humans and non-human life are similar: we share in knowledge and molecular composition, and see refuge in natural spaces. In thinking about human- pollinator interactions, natural spaces are refuges for pollinators and for us; we intersect in many ways including in our food source where we rely on pollinators for a majority of our crops.
I. Erase
Poem with bee diagram
Summer-Fall 2020
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Habitat loss, disease, and climate change are all major, human-induced problems currently plaguing pollinator populations. This poem highlights our role as erasers of habitat and contributors to climate change and what this means for pollinators and for ourselves in terms of ecosystem balance and food security. The linkage between scientific diagram and poetry was inspired by Monica Ong’s book Silent Anatomies and connects abstract ideas of environmental destruction to more tangible ideas of bodily disappearance.
(this climate)
Poem based on monarch data
Summer-Fall 2020
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Buried underneath scientific jargon, crucial information about the state of our environment is often lost to the public. This poem and graphic hopes to give new life to scientific data about monarch decline in a collaboration between science and the arts and demonstrate the plight of monarchs in the face of climate change.
The work above represents the creative foundation for a larger sculptural project that will be installed in one of the fields that Bee The Change operates. So far, I have rolled almost 300 balls of beeswax for use in the sculptural piece.
