Bird Calls, 2018

In 2015, I came across a box of 35mm slides for sale at a thrift store. The images, dating from the 1950s – 80’s, were an array of amateur snapshots capturing family life, holidays, vacations, and various personal interests. As I watched the ascendency of the far-right in the following years, these banal images of America came to seem ominous. Through collage techniques and chemical manipulation, I eroded the images in this archive to render their latent histories visible. Intended as a live performance, the resulting slide show uses spoken word to offer a counter-reading of the cultural formations imbedded in these found photographs.

Notes for a Film on Abstraction, 2017

A meditation on experimental film abstraction in the age of computer vision. What does it mean to create a poetry of images in an era in which digital technologies and artificial intelligence have commandeered sight itself?

The Mirror, 2017

The mirror uses architecture as a site of investigation into the intertwining histories of aesthetics and power. Shot in Italy, this work juxtaposes an exploration of ancient building practices and modern regimes, which crystallizes in the work of architect Luigi Moretti (1907-1973). Moretti was a modernist designer who worked closely with the Fascist government of Italy during Mussolini’s regime. While his reputation is being rejuvenated now, the ethical questions of his political affiliations remain unspoken and unresolved. In a historical moment in which far-right populism is surging, and contemporary fortress walls are being erected, the mirror questions what roles beauty and aesthetics play in collaboration and resistance.

When She Woke, 2016

A performer reads a tale while 35mm slides are displayed on the gallery wall. An Art Historian has come to a sleepy town in Italy. She is researching an elusive manuscript about architecture and love from the 15th century. Her experiences in the town become intertwined with the ancient text, as she reckons with her own desires and losses.

The Gates are Open, 2016

An experimental diary film, equally interested in recording the colors, sounds and images of daily life, and exploring larger themes of creation, mortality and belief.

Carte du Ciel, 2014

This multi screen video projection looks at how an ambitious astronomical project at the turn of the 20th century to photographically chart the entire universe ended in confusion and chaos- mirroring at each stage in its development our very understanding of the universe- from colonialist ventures to quantum uncertainty.

Snow, 2012

In snow, a simply told reminiscence of childhood is intersected by our knowledge of the world historic events to come. In the background, simple acts by a chorus of participants lend a pared down, dreamlike quality to the tale.

Earthrise, 2011

Over the course of many years, my father-in-law has told me a story of the pivotal role 1968 has played in his life. I wrote a script based upon his memories. During the recording process, I asked him to repeatedly tell the story in his own words a well as read the written document. The resulting voice over fuses these fragments of narrative in a self-reflexive manner that acknowledges how memories both become codified and resist their performative iterations. The images are outtakes of 16mm film shot the same year by astronauts circling the moon. As in the abstracted images of space, the meaning is present, but unclear- only to be reevaluated from some future understanding.

Malady, 2009

Malady explores the unbridgeable gap between a person dealing with a life threatening illness and her caregivers. Composed of approximately a dozen images of architectural thresholds located in an ordinary suburban home, Malady is a poignant meditation on proximity and distance, loss and anticipation.