Deconstructed Paradise

This thesis examines the complex relationship between art and place in an age of translocality, hypermobility, and widespread displacement. As a research-based artist, my art practice integrates studio work with on-site examinations of human relationships to the built environment. My interest in examining the relationship between humans and land use has led me to sites throughout the United States as well as to France, Germany, Italy, and Greece. The research and installation-based work in this thesis display my ever-evolving understanding of the territorial, sociopolitical, and environmental web that we weave on the places we inhabit.

Within the history of contemporary sculpture, most responses to this topic tend to focus upon individual relationships to specific places through acts such as documentation, preservation, or performance. Instead, I am interested in visualizing the expansion of residential space as an existential tension between stability and precariousness. What does community look like for a translocal society increasingly defined by cultural tribalism, populist isolationism, and forced migration? Ultimately, how can this sudden fragmentation be visually expressed with a sense of criticality?