Precarious, 2022 - ongoing (WIP).

Precarious is a multi-media installation and immersive experience. I envision visitors entering the installation and moving through it. There will be locations to stop and interact with audio and video works related to the larger theme that stand in contrast to the exuberant, colourful feeling of the piece. I also imagine opportunities for visitors to create sculptural pieces from pipe cleaners that could be added to the piece as well as the potential for performances to be created within it.

Precarious is made up of a wide variety of materials – large and small sculptures, drawings and painted works. The main materials used to create the environment, however, are pipe cleaners and thread. 

Precarious answers every question with, “yes.” 

Precarious hovers, dangles, and spins. 

Precarious is serious, playful, curious, unfinished, organic, growing. 

* * * 

We are at a time of precarity. It is not clear which way things will fall – is this the beginning of a descent into authoritarianism or are we finally having the long-awaited reckoning with colonialization and the violence of white supremacy? The climate emergency adds another layer of urgency. Hovering at the edge of a precipice, can we hold the complexity of the moment and take a skillful step? 

Precarious was inspired by some pipe cleaner sculptures that I saw at a local elementary school - they were so simple and so beautiful in their innocent exuberance. As I started to make my own, I quickly reflected on the precariousness of the lives of these children. Unlike any previous generation, they find themselves with bullet-proof backpacks, rehearsing what to do in case of a shooter. All while standing at the edge of the stark realities facing all of humanity. Like the children, like the pipe cleaners - the joyful, colourful reality of Precarious wants to be seen too.

“Sit, be still, and listen,

because you're drunk

and we're at the edge of the roof.” 

- Rumi