“They call me theirs” creates an experience intended to question the distinctions we make between the natural and mediated world. The genesis of this project goes back three years to a trekking trip in Peru. It took me a good three days to “un-plug”, but once I adjusted, an awareness of my surroundings surprised me. There was a presentness that now I can only occasionally attain. I’ve come to question the authenticity of my experience. What was truly mine? What had actually been framed by National Geographic and travel videos?
Authentic observation and participation are core to the project. Upon my return, I started documenting the seasonal changes around the perimeter of my home. I began to search for areas with less human influence, including local nature preserves and subsequently, the heartlands of Illinois and Wisconsin.
The installation reverses the experience of the outdoors by neatly packaging the four seasons in a “box set” that plays on a video monitor inside a handcrafted hardwood box, suggesting that our efforts to purify our experience with nature have actually taken us farther away from it. A “hanging garden” composed of large-scale ink jet prints on aluminum sign panels surrounds the box. The prints were sourced from video stills, then painted, and digitized, creating a luscious though synthetic environment. Two different cacophonous soundtracks play from both Box Set and outside the gallery, highlighting the tension between the realities of the two environments.
The title of the work is taken from a line in the poem “Hamatreya” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which questions man’s desire to claim ownership of the land that is inherently owned by nature. In the poem, the Earth responds, “How am I theirs, / If they cannot hold me, / But I hold them?”
“They Call Me Theirs - multi media installation, Notebaert Museum”
“They Call Me Theirs - Willow”
“They Call Me theirs - Vines”
“They Call Me Theirs - Maples”
“They Call me theirs - Cabin plus BoxSet 4 Seasons”
