An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. Inspired by the legend, I folded a thousand paper boats hoping to be granted a wish for safe travels. I flew with the paper boats from Philadelphia to Seattle to release the boats in a large mountain-shaped water fountain feeding a shallow texture pool and a reflecting pool.
The boat release explored the transformation of the spectator into participant, and the public and private spaces we travel through. Common objects were placed in situations for the purpose of changing the perception of how we look and deal with objects and situations in our lives. I intended to take the audience outside of the habitual to create a moment, a memory.
The documentation and remnants became the material in which to create new work. The residual images of the event have substantially transformed and extended the event, creating something all together different. The documentation becomes an active canvas through which identity and social relation may be re-articulated and re-made.
The new work provides a glimpse of the initial boat experience, but reengages the audience, asking for active participation. A video capturing the essence of the original paper boat experience will be projected onto a paper boat folding station. The viewer and myself will construct a new fleet creating with it a new memory. The work relies on this transformation of the spectator into participant, while offering a glimpse of the fleet’s future potential.

I am interested in creating environments and situations which explore the transformation of the spectator into participant, and the public and private spaces we travel through. Within the installations, common objects will be placed in situations for the purpose of changing the perception of how we look and deal with objects and situations in our lives. I intend to take the audience outside of the habitual to create a moment, a memory.
The documentation and remnants of the situational environments will then become the material in which I will create new work. The residual images and video of the experience will substantially transform and extend the event, creating something all together different. The documentation becomes an active canvas through which identity and social relation may be re-articulated and re-made.
The new work provides a glimpse of the previous experiential environment, but reengages the audience, asking again for active participation. The images capturing the essence of the previous experience will be projected onto a new environment, layering frames of memory on to the present experience. The viewer and myself will construct a new situation, creating with it a new memory. The work relies on this transformation of the spectator into participant, while offering a glimpse of the future potential of visually layering the experiences. During each created situation, I will document the participation of the viewer, thus continuing the cycle of creating new work from its remnants.

In my work, the body is an instrument of experience as well as a container for these experiences and memories. I am intrigued by attempts to control the body when it is influenced by strong emotion, physical stress, and meditation, and am interested in how these particular states reveal themselves in physical terms. I am drawn to the idea that the passage of life is reflected in the body’s physicality and how the collection of memories and experience are contained within.
Using the body as a lexicon, I explore the capacity for corporeal form to reflect and contain emotion. The body is both container and contained. My body is my subject, providing insight and reflection from specific mental states and based personal experiences. It is essential to my work that I experience the containment and vulnerability of the creating process itself; it connects me physically and conceptually to the results. I am interested in looking through the skin as though we can see the interior contents and essence of the body, to move beyond the visceral reaction to reveal the emotional interior. The work provides a connection for the viewer to ideas about internal and interior states being mirrored, expressed, or manipulated through the body’s external conditions and constraints. The work is self-referential, but also in a disconcerting way; speaks of absence, contortion, confinement, and manipulation.

Throughout the exhibition, I will abide by a regiment of physical deprivation testing my physical and mental endurance. I will confine myself to a small cell, just large enough to sit in, each day for three hours. Thus, isolating my physical self from external stimuli, and possibly producing introspective meditation or intense psychological and physiological responses. For the duration of the exhibition, I will abstain from substance except water and tea, detoxifying my body while turning to ketosis for energy. The fast will enhance my experience as well as increase sensitivity to my surroundings, intensifying throughout the exhibition. This period of abstinence and isolation may produce a variety of internal and external responses including anxiety, sensory illusions, reduced strength and vitality, and distortions of time and perception. Through deprivation I hope to attain a greater understanding of my psychological and physical self, pushing beyond previous experiences. Through close observation, I hope to provide a glimpse into this experience. I will record my observations in a journal and post them each day.