“Plasmatic Carnival How does our body respond to modern systems of labor? What are we giving up to satisfy these in different systems? In this body of work, I’ve created a story world that references family histories and our relationships with labor. These sculptures, speak to the intergenerational weight created by poverty and illness. To better understand these heavy stories I've created objects that represent these structures tied to gender, disability, and class, This has led me to inquire into art processes that use machines or methodologies entangled with labor. I think about processes in metal casting and printmaking and their roots. A press is tied to industrialism and similar metal casting. These objects in space are often immovable and seemingly permanent. Metal is ideal because of its strength. However, Bronze and iron are encoded with troubling legacies. My first instinct is to ridicule these elite materials with satire. I've been employed in these works carnivalesque narratives. This body of work is series of metal sculptures that reference the world of carnival with a suggested plasticity to their form. I also think about healing with my research. I return to my relationship with the land to situate myself. I’m reminded of indigenous scholar Leeroy Little Bears and his theory of animacy and our relationship with land in a state of flux. When printmaking and pour communities embrace animacy collectively they become empowered. Artists engage in these communal processes to subvert the industrial histories related to the body. Perceiving metal in a flux state changes its weight. In doing so we become embodied in a more tender flow. Fluid to the current.”