“to describe”
I am an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work intersects fields such as Critical Animal Studies, critical theory, visual culture, art, and media. I hold deep care and respect for humanity while also challenging human exceptionalism.
My ancestral history calls me toward themes of home, ‘belonging as the only one’, the difference between vulnerability practiced and vulnerability inflicted, the space before recognition, systems of momentum and systems of detriment, structural harm, and roots grown out of displacement.
My work often centers around these questions:
-What can protect us from compassion collapse?
-How do we build discourse around a topic that deeply threatens power, and in many cases has not yet institutionally or societally been recognized as holding real merit?
-How do we hold multiple realities at once, when doing so is both necessary and heartbreaking, while at the same time the world is burning and the victims of systemic violence, both human-animal and non-human animal, are in deep peril?
-What can art and media teach us about how to world-build a new collective reality where justice outlives oppression?
-How do we talk about animal justice along side human justice, within the reality of deeply cyclical harm-based systems, when the language around animals has been weaponized?
When I’m not working to contribute to the addressing of issues so pressing they deserve to be past tense, yet will surely overarch far beyond my own lifetime, I’m probably busy drinking tea, surviving, listening to seasonal Snoopy playlists, and cooking up vegan Iraqi recipes.
Heartbreak isn’t just for romance, and change isn’t just for tomorrow.