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Resources for Reviewers

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Introduction:
While my research, teaching, and service extend across media and platforms, they are all bound by shared conceptual underpinnings and mirror the interdisciplinary mission of the Department of Art at Florida State University. I maintain a rigorous national-level practice as both an artist and curator exploring the intersection between the visual arts and the public discourse surrounding climate change and environmental justice. I frequently work with collaborators, a model that is highly valued by my institution and allows me to better engage with complex and often painful narratives and histories. My artistic and curatorial practices greatly influence my pedagogy and have made me a unique asset to students, both through my classroom and museum-based teaching. 

Useful Links:
Professional CV
Academic CV
Statement on Research, Teaching, and Service
Writing about my work:
Burnaway
Prospect
Dovetail
Epicenter
Over Look / Under Foot Catalog Essay

Research:
My research practice primarily focuses on climate change and issues of environmental policy. I use studio-based and curatorial projects to make legible the social, economic, and political impacts of a changing climate. As the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts at FSU, I have worked with internationally known artists such as Pope.L, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Calida Garcia Rawles, and Richard Misrach to produce exhibitions which have engaged the FSU and Tallahassee communities in deep discussions surrounding hurricane preparedness, the impact of climate change on civil rights, and the intersection of Indigenous sovereignty and environmental stewardship. My studio-based research practice interrogates human interference into landscape. I use installation, video, sculpture, and collage to document and complicate particular sites. Utilizing historical landscape photography, environmental literature, and social media images, I often collapse many forms and sources simultaneously to reference the past as well as imagine the future. I frequently work with collaborator Katie Hargrave (Associate Professor of Art, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga).

Studio Practice

My project-based studio practice is grounded in an inquiry of so-called public lands. Working both independently and with frequent collaborator Katie Hargrave, I use materials such as tents, coolers, books, and maps as sculptural bases that I manipulate with photographic imagery. I am drawn to historical landscape photography, environmental literature, and social media images, often fusing many forms and sources within one body of work.

Wealthy, predominately white tourists are encouraged to “explore” so-called public lands through US land use policy and the outdoor industry. The term “explore” is presented as neutral, without acknowledging possible negative impacts of ballooning usage on fragile landscapes rich in cultural relevance. I am wary of “exploration,” and locate my work in that wariness, as I consider the impact of tourism and the outdoor industrial complex through the creation of multi-layered artworks and installations.
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Below find a brief introduction to five recent studio-based projects which are emblematic of my creative practice. For a fuller picture of my studio activity, please refer to my CV or the "projects" tab on this site.

Over Look / Under Foot

In the spring of 2020, collaborator Katie Hargrave and I traveled to the five national parks in Utah and completed an intervention at each site. These ranged from setting up hand made tents printed with photos taken by tourists to driving around a tear drop camper turned into a camera obscura. The resulting project, Over Look / Under Foot, includes a series of sculptures, photographs, and videos that document and recreate these responses to site. Through this project, we considered the layers of mediation that impact our own relationship to the outdoors and landscape. Tools like tents, campers, roads, and maps help us connect to nature while also altering our experience in the outdoors. Click here for more information and images of Over Look / Under Foot.

This work was supported by the Utah Division of Museums and was originally scheduled to be shown at the Rio Gallery in Salt Lake City in May of 2020. While that exhibition was canceled due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the work was shown later that fall at the New Gallery at Austin Peay State University, with a printed catalog and commissioned essay by Veronica Kavass. The exhibition then traveled to Granary Arts in Ephraim, UT, in the fall of 2021. Components of this project were shown in an exhibition of our photographic work at the University of Texas Permian Basin in the winter of 2021 and in the exhibition A Greater Utah at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in the fall of 2023. The work has been written about by art historian Christopher Lynn in an essay commissioned by Epicenter.

Welcome to Florida

The project Welcome to Florida imagines the material that will be at a visitor center on the Florida border 100 years from now, when rising sea levels will have dramatically altered the state. Updated maps, color swatches that once represented swamps and marsh lands, and boxes of treasured white sugar sand may welcome future tourists to our state. This exhibition, which featured paper sculpture, artist books, and laser engraved digital prints was installed at the Alexander Brest Gallery at Jacksonville University in the fall of 2021. Jacksonville is estimated to be the most expensive city to mitigate against rising sea level per capita in the United States. Click here for more information and images of this project.

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Mirror Muir

In the multi-media project Mirror Muir, collaborator Katie Hargrave and I examine the legacy of John Muir. In 1867, the famous botanist walked from Kentucky to Florida, a trip he documented in his travelogue A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf. In the 21st Century, Muir enthusiasts have worked to get parts of his route designated as the John Muir Trail. Muir's legacy is complicated by the actual text though, as his racism and classism are laid bare in the posthumously published diary. Hiking this new John Muir Trail and setting up our own interventions along the route, we created a series of sculptures and videos which question who the trail is for and who gets to feel comfortable and welcome on public land. A tent printed with images from the trail, slumped signs with photographs of John Muir Trail markers, a dual-channel video of us setting up a mirrored tent, collages with quotes from the text, and a reflective cooler sitting on and obscuring trail signage are all components of the exhibition. Click here for more information and images of this work. Shannon Cynowa wrote about this project for a feature article in Burnaway. We also discuss the project in an interview with Dovetail Magazine. The entirety of this work was shown in the spring of 2022 at the Gadsden Museum of Art in Gadsden, AL. Selected works have also been shown at Stove Works in Chattanooga, TN, Carnation Contemporary in Portland, OR, and the Blue Heron Nature Preserve in Atlanta, GA.

Developed, Developing

Developed, Developing, made with collaborator Katie Hargrave, was commissioned by the Knoxville Museum of Art for the Tennessee Triennial in the winter of 2023. Curated by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, the Tennessee Triennial was a state-wide exhibition hosted across numerous museums and cultural sites. The Knoxville Museum of Art exhibition also featured work by artists such as Betye Saar, Suzanne Jackson, and Rosemary Mayer.  Our project paired a handmade clear plastic tent of our own design with photographs printed on a multi-faceted platform. The images were taken from three sources - 19th Century photographs of land that would become national parks, 20th Century advertisements for outdoor recreation gear, and contemporary social media posts taken at public land sites. Using lenticular prints to collapse several images into one picture plane, the project emphasized the consistency of photographic tropes and language and the connections between settler colonialism, capitalism, and tourism. Click here for more information about this project.

Moss Gathers

In the spring of 2023, Katie Hargrave and I were research fellows at the Outdoor Recreation Archive at Utah State University. This collection includes the archives of numerous outdoor recreation companies as well as the sketchbooks and ephemera of designers and artists. We spent much of our time in the archive with the materials of Bill Moss, a textile artist turned tent designer. His company, Moss Tent Works, produced beautifully designed tents throughout the 1980s, before being bought out by REI. These original Moss Tents are now highly sought after collectors items with a significant secondary market. Using original advertisement imagery as well as contemporary ebay postings, we created an installation that references three original Moss Tents. This project also includes a series of collages made from outdoor recreation advertisements and a set of lenticular prints. In this work, we are considering the fetishization of the outdoor experience and how capitalist imaginings of the outdoors impact our experience. The exhibition was shown at COOP Gallery in Nashville in the spring of 2024. This work was also supported by a grant from the Current Art Fund, a regranting agency of the Andy Warhol Foundation. 

Bad Outdoorsmen

Bad Outsdoormen is a multi-year project through which collaborator Katie Hargrave and I examine the performance of masculinity in the outdoors. During the pandemic, we both became obsessed with the History Channel reality television show Alone. On this show, contestants are dropped into remote locations and must film themselves as they struggle to build shelter, find food, and survive on their own in the outdoors. Considering how photography has often been used in the project of settler colonialism, we connect the activities of these contestants to the history of westward expansion in the United States and its mingling with masculinity and capitalism. We have created our own ghillie suit (a type of three dimensional camouflage worn by hunters) made of laser cut silk leaves. Wearing these suits, we have filmed ourselves in locations where significant figures in the mainstream American environmental movement traveled. For example, while artists in residence at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, we visited sites in North Florida where John Audubon collected birds and where Billy Bartram struggled to establish a homestead. Using the tropes and language of reality television, we connect the activities of 19th Century conservationists to contemporary bushmen. The University of Wyoming has commissioned another episode of this project, which took us to sites in Wyoming and Utah where William Henry Jackson photographed the landscape as part of a federally funded surveying expedition.

This work will debut in an exhibition at Grizzly Grizzly in Philadelphia in the fall of 2024. Future episodes will be shown in exhibitions at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum in St. Augustine, FL and the University of Wyoming Museum of Art, both in 2025. Marcus Civin wrote about this work in an essay commissioned by Prospect. This work was also supported by an artist residency at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation and a fellowship from the Halo Arts Project. A print catalog will accompany the exhibition at the Crisp-Ellert, featuring an essay by Nina Bozicnik, the curator of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. 

Curatorial Practice

Since 2018, I have served as the sole dedicated curator for the Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) at Florida State University. In this role, I establish the overall curatorial vision for the museum, curate one or two exhibitions per year, guide acquisitions, and work with visiting and guest scholars from across the university and the field to develop projects. My curatorial expertise is in contemporary art, with a specific focus on environmental work. As the curator of a permanent collection, I also frequently take on projects outside of this immediate area, in service of the collection and the museum's varied and diverse stakeholders. Below is a brief introduction to three selected projects which are representative of my curatorial practice. ​

Rising Water

"Destroy This Memory" by Richard Misrach

In the fall of 2018, Hurricane Michael struck the Florida Panhandle and the Florida State University campus. The first storm to make landfall in the United States as a category 5 since Hurricane Andrew, Michael laid a 70-mile wide path of destruction through several states. In response, co-curator Jessica Ingram and I brought together a group of artists who had been impacted by hurricanes to ask the question of how we can center empathy and care in the rebuilding. Hosted in the Museum of Fine Arts in the winter and spring of 2020, Rising Water featured work by Trenton Doyle Hancock, Aspen Mays, Richard Misrach, Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun, Willie Birch, Frances Gallardo, and Sarah Welch. We also organized and hosted a slate of public programs in support of the exhibition, including talk back sessions with state legislators, public forums with city planners, artist talks, poetry readings, and film screenings. The show was supported by an ArtWorks grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Click here for more information about this exhibit.

A Shared Body

Installation view of woven paper works by Sarah Sense

"Mirror Shields" by Cannupa Hanska Luger

In the fall of 2021, Annie Booth (Curatorial Assistant, MoFA) and I co-curated A Shared Body, an exhibition of work that considered access to water a civil, as well as human, right. With work by Calida Garcia Rawles, Pope.L, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Courtney M,. Leonard, Jim Denomie, Andrea Carlson, Sarah Sense, and Heid E. Erdrich, the show addressed the Flint Water Crisis, Standing Rock, the legacies of segregation, and Indigenous water access. With a robust slate of public programming, from dancers-in-residence to poetry readings, the project engaged thousands of Tallahassee community members through twice weekly free events. This project was co-sponsored by the Florida State University Civil Rights Institute and engaged academic departments from across the university. This project also led to new acquisitions by Pope.L and Jim Denemie for the university's permanent collection. Click here for more information about this project.

Shape Shifting: 35 Years of Late Modernist Prints

As the curator of a collecting museum, I often take on projects outside of my immediate area of specialization. In the fall or 2022, I curated an exhibition of later modernist prints from the permanent collection. Spanning 1950-1985, the abstract, geometric works reflected advances in print technology and global political trends. Since assuming the role of curator, I have guided our acquisition policy to better bring our collection into alignment with the students we serve. To this end, this show led to the acquisition of several new works by Latinx artists Edival Ramosa, José Luis Rochet, Domingo López, and Elí Barreto. This exhibition traveled to the Wiregrass Museum of Art in the fall of 2023. ​

Teaching:
Much like my research practice, my teaching responsibilities and opportunities cross several applications, from the formal responsibilities of the classroom to the pedagogical vision of the museum. The cohesive tie that unites all of the teaching that I do is serving as a connection point between students and a broader, often professional, world. As such, a primary focus of my teaching is utilizing my experience as an artist and curator to incorporate experiential projects into both classroom and museum-based education. By blending curation, interpretation, and other publicly focused methods with more traditional scholarship like reading and writing, I prepare students for professional opportunities while using the format of the exhibition as a platform to discuss issues in contemporary art.

Complete statement on teaching
Sample Syllabi

Service:
Over the past several years, I have made significant contributions to the field, university, College of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, and Department of Art through service. As curator and interim director of the Museum of Fine Arts, my administrative responsibilities have been extensive and unusual for a junior faculty member, and I have further used these opportunities to gain institutional knowledge and leadership skills which will continue to benefit my community both in and outside of the university. My leadership has been recognized through my election to multiple university level committees, and I have chaired service committees for the College of Fine Arts as well as the Department of Art. I have also served on both the Professional Practices and Services to Artists Committees for the College Art Association and have been a reader and juror for numerous national and state level grants, exhibitions, and other programs in our field.
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Complete statement on service