For the past few years, I have focused on the cultural losses caused by environmental degradation, specifically the rising sea levels and coastal erosion affecting the Atlantic and Gulf regions of the United States.

My course of study explores the intersection of ecology, culture, history, anthropology, and environmental justice, alongside postcolonial, queer, and feminist concepts and theories. This multifaceted approach allows me to analyze, understand, and recontextualize the past, present, and future states of coastal wetlands and estuaries.

Detail from: Untitled #1255
(A Brief Exploration of Time — Act 3: Millennia) 2020-ongoing

Through historical research, local exploration, observation, and visual investigations, I immerse myself in the contemporary conditions of these “wastelands.” This engagement helps me develop a solid experiential and emotional connection to the environment.

My concentration enables me to create work that examines various aspects of these environments—essentially a geography of time and an ethnography of space. I explore the lives of the tiniest insects, the insights of displaced Indigenous people, the stories of marooned slaves, and the riverine communities of African Americans and other disenfranchised groups who, whether by necessity or choice, have made these places their home.

With this knowledge and perspective, I navigate the remnants of their existences—long lost to the passage of time—on a journey to reaffirm the significance of their experiences. I highlight the destructive forces of American society and the state as they affect the environment, ways of life, and cultures of these communities.

Through my work, I aim to celebrate these often-ignored narratives, which have been disparaged and dismissed as too insignificant to collect or preserve. By employing the creative freedoms offered by fictional reimaginings—comprising assemblages of history, artifacts, minutiae, and the poetry of moving images—I seek to honor the ways in which people have been transformed through their encounters with wetlands.

I want to share the stories of these communities, their lost lands, and their current realities, emphasizing their connections with one another and bringing these narratives into our contemporary experience.

Research documentation from: Finding Clotilda part 1 (Lake Drummond, Great Dismal Swamp, VA) July, 10th 2021