Installation view from Liminal Space: 2019 SMFA Senior Thesis
Exhibition. Thesis project statement: Nature is one of our greatest teachers: in
creation, destruction, renewal, and balance. Humanity has found ways to disrupt nature
and impose ourselves on the landscapes that shape our experience of life. As humans
trying to understand our relationship with nature, we have created harm and destruction
to the land directly. This destructive tendency carries over to how we experience
natural settings. Out of these interactions, nature in America has become deeply tied to
national identity and an individual sense of belonging; and the "other" that is people
of color is alienated. Spaces that should be healing, a reminder that we are part of
something greater, are instead unsettling and even dangerous to many who are "other" in
American society.