In 2017, I purchased a small 50 acre farm in Southern Ontario. The farm was about trying to find an artistic response to the fractured ecological relations I often witness. To date, much of my work has tended to highlight the devastating impact our species has on other animals' lives. Engaging with ecological issues can cause tremendous grief and despair. The farm was a creative and actionable act that attempted to take a deeper look at land relations, and maybe put something back together in some way.

Although the site's ultimate goals were altered, the vision—the idea that artists can act as creative agents to reimagine possible ways of picking up the fractured and broken bits and relations to reestablish and rebuild new futures—is driving my new works.

I have created a new body of experimental, material-based works since my time there. The great multispecies scholar Donna Haraway has said that “it matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories”. These land-based experimental works explore Haraway’s ideas of worlding and material relations with a multispecies world.

Each panel is covered in handmade paper, made by blending my research papers with grass from the farm. Each panel is the physical dimensions of an animal I personally witnessed on the farm. Within each individual panel are the land relations, some historical, between that animal and plant species, or human cultural practices that have or are currently taking place on the farm. Materials used include my research notes, graphite, and materials present on the farm, including hay/grass, soil, handmade plant inks, glyphosate, milkweed, elm leaves, etc. The process of some of the work can be seen below. The upcoming show will provide cohesive images of the installed works.