I am pleased to present a paper about my recent exhibition A Sentient Land: Artistic Alliances with Forests, Beetles, Salt, and Air. I am part of a panel with Dr. Leonie Bradbury and Dr. Jason Hoelscher, “Who Speaks Now? Foucault’s Author-Function Across Materiality, Matter, and Machines.”

images: Margaux Crump, Nelly-Eve Rajotte

I will present my paper, Witnessing Beyond the Human: Derrida, Animality, and Non-Human Testimony in Janis Rafa's Lacerate, at the Derrida Today Conference. It will be helpful to receive feedback about this, as it is part of my dissertation.

image: Janis Rafa, Lacerate, still, 2019.

My friend Kate wrote this brilliant book, Place-as-Medium and New Grounds for Thinking in Contemporary Art. I am happy to be a part of the book launch taking place at the Bower in Beverly, MA, on May 15. Learn more about Kate’s work as a scholar and artist here.

It was a pleasure to work with all of the artists at Mother Brook Arts and Community Center, and their Executive Director, Erin Becker, over the past few months to create this exhibition exploring the picture plane.

Image: installation view with landscapes by Marilyn Mase, Remmi Franklin, and Terry Boutelle.

I have been mapping out my dissertation with the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA). I will use posthumanist philosophy to explore the figuration of memory and relationships. One of the artists who inspires this writing is Sarah Sze, whose work is pictured above at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC, 2023.

I am proud to be the curator of a new series of NO SLEEPING, a series of experiential, photographic performances by Deb Todd Wheeler and Sue Murad, complemented by the culinary talents. of Maureen Coffey.

We met on March 8, 2025, at the Transcultural Exchange Conference in Cambridge, MA for our panel about Entangled Lives. The thoughtful and generous presentations shared ideas about novel ways to consider the location and subjectivity of all beings on earth.

IMAGES:

1 - Grace Grothaus, Sun Eaters: Installation, seven 3D printed branches with custom electronics and fasteners, variable dimensions, 2023.

Sun Eaters is an installation that invites viewers to meet a tree. A series of prosthetic limbs translate the live bioelectrical rhythms in the trees into light and vibration making it possible to both see (through light from LEDs) and feel (via vibration from motors) a trees unique “heartbeat”.  

2 - Grace Grothaus, Sun Eaters: Installation, seven 3D printed branches with custom electronics and fasteners, variable dimensions, 2023.

Visitors interact with Sun Eaters at the Toronto Botanical Gardens during the Nuit Blanche Festival.

3 - Grace presenting her term, envirographic art. 

4 - Eli Brown’s website Another Mother, a database and interactive map about plants, fungi, and animals who express multiple sexes to which you could contribute: anothermother.co/database

5 - Alex Soulsby’s poignant final slide showing how unprecedented flooding impacted the campus and an art installation at the organization he founded, Artist Residency Thailand. 

6 - Yuko Oda, Migration, detail, Japanese mineral pigments and plastic on mulberry paper, 30” x 16", 2024

Plants migrate by growing on the bodies of ladybugs, ladybugs migrate with the benefit of being lit, camouflaged by the golden grass. We all must migrate; who will you depend on when you do? here

I am thrilled to be the Associate Curator of Special Projects and Campus Engagement at Emerson Contemporary. This image is from the fall 2024 exhibition, off the pedestal, featuring art by Laura Anderson Barbata (left), Paula J. Wilson (right), and New Red Order (not pictured). More news on this front soon!

I teach at Emerson College, and it’s been a rewarding challenge to facilitate conversations with students and professors . I’m also teaching a seminar to Global BFA students about moving image art.

This photo is from a February 2025 field trip to Jeu de Paume, Paris, France.