3 x 8 x 1.5 inches
Braille, brown bear hide, photograph through a glass magnifier, and encaustic on hand-cut scrap metal.
Image Description: Three metal plates the size of playing cards tell a story of excessive brown bear death. The piece on the left has “a fed bear is a dead bear” written in English Grade 1 Braille on white paper and is attached to the metal with wax. The middle piece has a triangular piece of brown bear hide attached to the center of the plate, with long guard hairs flowing beyond the reflective metal plate. The third plate has a blurred photograph made through a hand-held magnifier of a winter forest scene.
6 x 5 x 1.5 inches
Silver paint from a climate refugee on vintage Braille paper, cottongrass seed head, and encaustic on reflective hand-cut scrap metal.
Image Description: Two small art pieces speak with one another. On the left, a tattered, tan-colored paper with a language in Braille I haven't been able to translate. Tiny painted silver dots cover the top half of the cutout like an irruption of pine siskins through winter air. On the right, a sheet of scrap metal the same size as the Braille sheet, slightly larger than a playing card. On top of the metal is a tawny conttongrass seed head resembling fox fur, similar in color to the tan-colored paper. The seed head reflects itself and the viewer off the metal and is pointed in the direction of the silver painted dots.
Photographs - Size varies
Sound travels roughly 4 times faster through water than air. Suspended in the air above my hand are used hearing aid batteries from two dear friends, drawing connections between sound and positive feedback loops, ice reflectivity and extraction, air and water. I’ve been thinking about invisible disabilities in our shifting communication systems, how verbal and nonverbal nuance and context can easily be lost in online spaces and translated language. Translation itself distances the speaker to the listener or reader.
Image Description: two photographs speak with each other through visible touch and sound: a black and white photograph of small icebergs in water is next to a pale-colored left hand in a white background, and about to catch or let go of hearing aid batteries suspended above the hand. Some batteries are blurred and blend with the skin tone of the hand.