Water Body (installation)

2023
Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
“Vermont Week” Open Studios

Installation, film, mixed media, sculpture, painting

Water Body is an evolving body of work created during my residency at the Vermont Studio Center as part of the fully funded Vermont Week program. Developed on VSC’s historic campus along the Gihon River, the project was presented in-progress at the residency’s culminating Open Studios event.

The installation interlaced painting, sculpture, film, sound, and mixed media to explore grief, embodiment, and the body’s kinship with water. A large painting unfolded as a vision of dark and light matter, energy unfurling from a photographic still of my body in motion — an image of life emerging from pain and trauma, echoing her navigation of broken lineage and chronic pain. A sculpture of branches and stones framed a looping projection that combined river footage with blurred images of the body yielding and dissolving, accompanied by my original vocal composition. Mixed media drawings on black paper paired topographic linework with photographic film stills, extending the sense of dissolution and renewal.

At its heart, the installation grappled with grief — particularly in response to the unfathomable losses in Gaza — and with the paradox of holding that grief as both a life-giver and a mother. The work sought ways to let sorrow move like water through the body, expanding its capacity to remain present with pain while still rippling into life.

Tags: Installation, Mixed media, Painting, Drawing, Film, Sound / Composition, Somatic ecology, Embodied research, Interdisciplinary research, Ecological sculpture, Ritual / Ceremonial practice, Grief work