balaena
balaena, 2023, video.
A stranded whale meets its simulation as human interlopers observe, collect, dissect, and take selfies. A woman seeks closure. Blurring documentary and fiction, the film explores the changes brought by human progress and advancement through the element of water. The ocean activates our senses and counterbalances the decomposing of the whale body, which reminds us of our own impermanence against the eternal presence of the element of water.
Artist Statement: I am a maker of moving images, interdisciplinary artist, and writer, and my work is situated at the intersection of studio and media arts. Grounded in historical and archival research, I employ animation, photography, live-action fiction film, sculpture, found footage, metal, and fibers to portray human and non-human histories of displacement, loss, and suffering. Through my studio practice, I make sculptural objects that I activate through animation, film, photography, and video. This embodied, analog, and manual practice allows me to connect more deeply with the subjects of my research and operate at an affective, gestural, and visceral level. I am compelled by forgotten histories of oppression, disempowerment, and the pain that these bring to both human and non-human individuals, and I seek to bring these histories to the surface to create a space devoted to mourning and healing, dissent, and dispute. I anchor my work in archival research because this allows me to access primary sources that have not yet been predigested by someone else. This exploration facilitates a contact with history that is direct, mostly unmediated, and multivocal. As a result of prioritizing special collections, I engage with documents and objects that often contradict established beliefs. The past that emerges from this exploration complicates established meanings, knowledge, and ideologies, facilitating a contrapuntal and more meaningful access to history. My work centers environmental concerns and feminist stakes. Since the term “ecofeminism” was first coined by Francoise d’Eaubonne in 1974, feminist thinkers have engaged with the connections between the domination of nature and the treatment of humans considered subordinates to white heterosexual men. One aspect that facilitates human exceptionalism is the confidence that “man” know everything, and therefore is capable of exerting control on other subjects considered less savvy. To challenge this patriarchal trait, I embrace opacity, open-endedness, and lacuna, and I employ an array of media that allow me to render a partial, ununified and fragmented perspective. By pursuing dissonance and ambiguity I seek to communicate to the viewers that our understanding of life can be incomplete and that we can learn to accept this. By recognizing that the idea that humanity has all the answers is anthropocentric, patriarchal, and oppressing, I seek a different way of looking at the human and non-human other, one that acknowledges the subject as an individual, recognizes their suffering and doesn’t look away.
