The Edge of Dwelling

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

Photo: Stefan Hagen

“The Edge of Dwelling” (2019) is an immersive, fictional city from printed and collaged photos of historical ruins, churches, schools, Victorian stage props, government buildings, and estates. The original images are sourced from American colonial texts documenting the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Mixed within these photos are images of buildings from Wave Hill that have similar architectural facades. Supplemented with a soundscape by Finnish musician, Lau Nau, the space blurs distinctions between the ‘real’ and ‘imagined’, the ‘wild’ and the ‘civilized,’ the ‘empty’ and the ‘occupied’. I am interested in creating a fragmented kaleidoscopic site of facades and replicas that play with perspective, representation of space, and one’s sense of orientation to one’s surroundings. How are sites of dwelling constructed? Who are these places for? How is power signaled and maintained through the reconstructions of the land and the erasure of narratives? The installation is not a static space; I repositioned the architectural structures several times throughout the run of the exhibition. Finnish musician Lau Nau and I collaborated to create a soundscape that vibrates throughout the gallery. We used recorded excerpts from quiet but occupied spaces at Wave Hill and natural phenomena to craft an experimental auditory experience between silence and a charged sense of haunting.

For the exhibition I created 2 public programs. The first, was a movement meditation workshop open to the public in the installation facilitated by myself and writer and meditation instructor Kate Johnson. The second was a closing live performance in the installation with Lau Nau. I cleared the space of the sculptures and scattered them across Wave Hill's grounds.

This installation was part of a 3-person exhibition at Wave Hill called “Here We Land” curated by Jennifer McGregor.

Live Performance (Go to “Selected Performances - The Edge of Dwelling”)

Images of live performance during the exhibition at Wave Hill “The Edge of Dwelling.” (see “Exhibitions and Installations” for more information)

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For the closing of the installation “The Edge of Dwelling,” (2019) I performed live with Finnish musician Lau Nau. The live performance was in front of an audience. Prior to the audience arriving, I cleared the sculptures from the gallery space and placed them outside around the landscape at Wave Hill. The visitors arrived to an empty space, apart from the floors and walls covered in 2D collaged architectures. Lau Nau began by playing music of edited field recordings of Wave Hill. While she performed, I crawled through the emptied space and attempted to interact with the printed images on the floor and walls, as though they were 3D. For example, I attempted to enter into the collaged images of doors and windows. I wanted to have a gesture that embodied the impossibility of truly accessing the histories from the images. Afterwards, I ran outside through the doors and windows of the gallery, and pulled the sculptures back into the space as quickly as possible, in an attempt to reconstruct the city. I pulled the sculptures in through the multiple openings of the space, disorienting the audience, and negotiating with their bodies.