THE RESIDENCY:
V4L Wild and Wonderful Artist Residency, Harper’s Ferry, West VA, USA

PROJECT TITLE:
Drifters

THE QUESTION:
What lies between departure and arrival points–between boundaries? How do the experiences in these in-between spaces change us, blur us, and re-imagine us into something new?

THE UNDERPINNINGS:
This transience is the underpinning of my practice. My metaphors for transience in the natural world are deserts, rivers, trains, and plants following human patterns of movement and the things we leave behind. These represent the quandary of redirection, and ultimately, redefinition. In these liminal spaces, one navigates all important things in living which can be defined conceptually as migrations, statehood, gender, language, race, religion, relationships, or many other pathways where we find ourselves in-between.

THE PROPOSAL:
I proposed a broad project at V4L. Interventions in nature, sculptural work, weed and soil collection at installation sites with geolocation tags as well as videos with local oral histories about migrations to this place.

EXHIBIT A: LOST AND FOUND
I began on the 2nd of August. Heading directly for the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potamic Rivers, I collected cast-off railroad spikes, which had resided at the river’s edge for many years—in a transitory state. Upon their collection, they arrived at their destination. I gilded them with gold leaf and mounted them on black velvet for permanent exhibition in the Wayside Wondercabinet as a curiosity of transience in the natural world.

EXHIBIT B: INTERVENTIONS IN NATURE
Interventions took place at the (90 years defunct) Shenandoah Pulp Factory and the defunct Limestone Quarry. White fabric, 3’ wide by 50’ long, represents a pathway through time. There are several documented interventions in these locations.

EXHIBIT C: PAINTINGS
A surprise emerged during the process at V4L: paintings. Spending time walking through the woods, watching weeds literally grab onto the clothing of passersby made me understand the genius of their muscleless migratory behaviors. Something I noticed my entire life (and found rather annoying), in this context—was nothing short of awe-inspiring. 45 small paintings of weeds on burlap were the result—sewn one after the other to a jute rope—mimicking the procession of weeds alongside humans.

EXHIBIT D: WEED COLLECTION and ARCHIVING
Weeds at Installation and video sites collected with geolocation tags will describe the exploration this residency took in the region. A future project might include collaborations with local botanists to explore this aspect deeper.

EXHIBIT E: SOUND and VIDEO
The soundtrack for this region is trains. Freight trains run all day and night in a cortege steel and clamor, moving from their departure point to their destination in allegorical in-between-moments. The sound of trains passing close by is nothing short of crushing—and from afar, nothing short of lonesome. These crushing and lonesome effects are a direct reflection of how one feels when navigating difficult situations in our lives. Sound provides a visceral experience.

Two videos were compiled for Drifters. The Freight train passing through Harper’s Ferry and the shadows of people walking across the Shenandoah River walking bridge (from Maryland to West Virginia), cast onto the shoreline of the river. Oral histories of migrations to Harper’s Ferry will be used as a soundtrack to these videos.