Homework

Abstract

My working methods build upon an ongoing interest in examining how identities and understanding are formed through the construction of personal and collective histories in shifting interplays of lived events, social conditions, places and mediating objects. Many of my efforts focus on processes of cultural location, on observing and questioning actions of learning, appropriating, acculturating and hybridizing in order to “make home.” I was fascinated by locally handcrafted objects, domestically and abundantly produced doilies, which motivated my interest in needlework, sweat work and other historically under-recognized, gendered forms of labour. Using vernacular objects and forms that register as goods and cast-offs in cycles of commodity production and consumption, I investigate the possibilities of art practice—extra and intra studio—to respond to emergent questions of locality and sense of belonging, to destabilize essential notions of cultural membership, and to explore issues of artist agency in capitalist culture.