ACCESS POINTS // OR // ALTERNATIVE STATES OF MATTER(ING)
RA WALDEN
STORM KING ART CENTER: 2023
sickness as a visitation: crop circles holding intangibility, doubt, suspicion. echoes questions of validity and legitimacy within bodies, especially marginalised bodies. living with doubt both internally and externally; the crop circles hold that unknowing.
the CHNOPS elements reminding that we are made of the same things as the earth at this point of extreme vulnerability societally, physically, and planetarily.
access as entanglement: essential, elemental, changing states from sick to well from legible to illegible, from known to unknown. reaching each other across vast distances. finding connection in othered states. climates shifting and affecting
change.
the body as landscape and unknown terrain: how little is understood about the celestial body of the planet and the fallible bodies that we inhabit. the vulnerabilities of both. learning from the elemental, mineral, botanical. bodies of rock
and bodies of land. translating knowledge through these different constellations.
crip time as wisdom: learning through the failing of systems, seeking lessons from sickness, slowness, expanses of time. moving from the now to the future and reaching into the past. sickness as a way to time travel. time travel as essential
for protecting ourselves and our planet.
illness as generative: holding the possibility of being changed, of making new tracks in the terrain. being forced to live outside of dominant cultures and to create one's own measures of meaning.
alienation as induction: electrically charged bodies, atoms, and electrons. from the micro to the macro. scale and time as tools to reground in the now. world-building as a way to enact change in the now.
the crop circles map the CHNOPS elements into the land echoing the mapping of sickness onto the body reminding that all bodies are made from the elemental the texts and audio connect the viewer to the crop circles, spanning the
distance between the benches and the land the land holds the change of being dug into and transformed. the body holds the transformation of sickness. plunged into another world. an alien territory. with that change is fecundity new
ways of reaching each other new ways of inhabiting physical bodies and bodies of land access not as burden but as potential the work asks the viewer to hold this capacity for change to move from within ourselves all the way out
to the size of space and the potential of physics; to be awed by the complexity of living within a body, bound to this celestial earth, and searching for ways to survive the different access points (text, audio, sculpture, video) allow multiple
entryways, engaging multiple senses and providing a non-prescriptive experience. offering translations and mutations each holding its own meaning. creating a real-world example of the capacity of access to invite expansion
WITH THANKS TO the following collaborators for their care, creativity, expertise, generosity, labour, cooking, thinking, planning, organising, editing, composing, cleaning, washing, welding, proofreading, troubleshooting, filming, lifting, travelling,
listening, plotting, and and and
Nora Lawrence, Adela Goldsmith, Hanna Washburn, Mike Seaman, Eric Booker, The Honourable Elizabeth A Baker, LA Warman, Remy at GOODWITCH, Harley Aussoleil, Clay AD, Caspar Heinemann, Pilar Muñoz Sandoval, Aleks Peksena, Lo G Moran, Lauryn
Youden, Frances Breden, Alx Velozo, Cooper Lovano, Saar Shemesh, Billy Mason Wood, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Fuchsia Voremberg, Freddy Walden, Tazu Walden, Jamie Walden, Francesca Gardiner, Jenny Walden, Robin Walden, Miyuki Sedohara, Leah Clements,
Abi Palmer, Anthony R Green, Rebecca Kay Halliwell Sutton, Elio J Carranza, Nicholas Weist
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The Field Guide: Rob Irving & John Lundberg Beverly Buchanan: 1978 - 1981: Edited by Park McArthur and Jennifer Burris Staton Dust: LA Warman Ashkenazi Herbalism: Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern
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PROJECT
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