- Past Art Exhibition -
THE LONG MEMORY PROJECT
Cyrah Dardas
ARTIST STATEMENT: Through my practice, I address the ecofeminist parallels in the treatment of femmes and gender-expansive folks, and the mistreatment of the earth by toxic hierarchical systems like the patriarchy and by extension, capitalism. I seek to reestablish forgotten and disrupted relationships and patterns between humans and the rest of creation that have been disrupted by these systems. I suggest our pathway towards this reintegration of humans and earth is to dismantle settler colonial anthropocentrism, hetero-supremacy, and the constructed binary of gender within ourselves. I use process as a portal of regulation and healing for myself from these systems, and offer it to others through ceremony to restore our collective ecological body and return to interdependence. This guiding philosophy of ecofeminism, leads me to an interdisciplinary practice that observes, engages and celebrates life in its various phases and forms.
My work is an archive of continual search and discovery, a somatic remembering, a way of engaging in and relating to the world and a practice of composting grief. I come to this practice as a survivor of familial and intimate partner violence living with PTSD, co-creating frameworks of care and belonging to heal and chart out pathways towards repair for myself and those that engage with my work.
In my practice, I reference the technique, relationality, and symbolism of Persian tapestry (Kilim) making. Making in this site specific way, on the urban, industrialized land of Detroit results in finished works made of a composite of botanical and man made source materials. I make inks, dyes and watercolors from grown and foraged plants, found recycled metal, bark, ochres, fallen house paint chips, ashes, brick and stone. The colors and textures derived from the materials reflect the landscape and identity of the land I live within. It is my belief that by honoring their origins, I reference their lives and stories. My paintings and textiles are cosmological maps made with place based elements of my surroundings. In my sculpture work, I reference the dictated mathematical progression of plant growth, shell formation, and the fractal mechanics of seed pod dispersion to draw attention to their intelligent design.
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Oso Daisy Draza
ARTIST STATEMENT: The poetry in these pages are inspired by those who made the way we are now able to live our lives out loud possible. I took the stories from these queer elders and tried to encapsulate them in verse. Along with art from Quinn Faylor this work serves to enshrine the moments spent and the stories shared during The Long Memory Project residency.
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Quinn Faylor
ARTIST STATEMENT: I am a queer, non-binary, multi-disciplinary artist based in Detroit, MI. My work primarily focuses on embodiment and joy, exploring how we interact with space and transform it.
My artistic approach is a visual dance of shapes and dimensions, where each shape stands distinct next to another, reflecting the dynamic flow of my environment. This interaction is vividly captured through color, where each hue is characterized by its movement and the boundaries it creates with its surroundings, adding depth and a sense of time to my pieces.
My compositions are a celebration. They are playful patterns deeply influenced by my relationships with myself, others, and the natural world. I draw inspiration from the dualities of acceptance and refusal, the complex interplay of joy and difficulty in self-discovery, and the concept of relationships as creative collaborations. These ideas motivate me to envision and craft spaces and dynamics that are nurturing and supportive.
I am also inspired by the spontaneity of movement and the comforting warmth of stretched limbs. The motion and structure in my work demonstrates and explores the qualities of flexibility, curiosity, resistance, and growth. Together, these elements converge on various mediums-canvas, páper, or wall--to explore a world that resonates externally and internally with the viewer.
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Jamie John
ARTIST STATEMENT: My earliest memories of artmaking are intertwined with planting and gardening. While my ability to access land to plant on has been inconsistent, I have been able to find a similar resilience within wild plants and myself. These seeds even after being carried miles and miles away by the winds still know when and where to take root in order to thrive in an increasingly fraught world climate. Within these seeds is everything theyll ever need to know in order to grow into plants with their own stems, leaves, petals, roots, and yes, eventually their own seeds. One teaching about seeds and plants that I carry with me is: if we take care of the seeds, they will take care of us.
This installation emphasizes the ecological importance of native plants. These native plants have evolved to be in reciprocal relationships with the land here much like the Indigenous peoples of this area. The distribution of wild native plant seeds are integral to keeping our waters clean, protecting soil from erosion, keeping our surrounding resistant against climate change, and creating habitats and providing food sources for many animals. This collection of seeds are meant to attract pollinators like native bee species, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. The presence of these plants and pollinators are foundational in maintaining the health, stability, and sustainability in our ecosystems.
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Elijah Nykamp
ARTIST STATEMENT: These six jackets aim to communicate different stages of the queer experience: innocence, discarding, deconstruction, freedom, duality, & community. Memories shared by the elders influenced themes, detail elements & fabrics used. While the progression is certainly not linear, comprehensive or reflective of the whole, common threads arose from conversations & storytelling.
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Madeleine October
ARTIST STATEMENT: I create work centered in relationships, exploring how art can strengthen interpersonal connection and serve our communities. As a musician, composer, and spoken word artist, the performance space is my primary venue for community building. In an average month you can find me hosting open mics, performing in interdisciplinary arts festivals, contributing to singing circles, and employing audience participation in the concert hall. I have a professional background in performing arts community engagement and apply similar strategies in my personal creative practice: facilitating collaboration and partnership, fostering skill and resource sharing, and championing experiences that are participatory and mutually beneficial. These priorities are reflected within my work, often focusing on interpersonal relationship, human relationship to the earth, relationship to our in-groups, and relationship to the self.
The driving purpose in my artistic practice is to inspire creativity in others. My work is the product of countless artists who have poured bits of themselves into me, each of them amplifying my own voice. I position my work as a part of a larger movement of reclaiming and celebrating creativity, especially in response to a history of hierarchy and exclusion in the arts industry. I understand my voice not as something that lives in me alone, but rather in and amongst a community of artists and within a larger collective human consciousness.
My work affirms that creativity is inside us and inside of the world; it is a reciprocal, inexhaustible gift.
Lilian Pitser
ARTIST STATEMENT: The collection I have created for the Long Memory Project is inspired by stories of elder
2SLGBTOIA+ folks that have not been able to share their life experiences; whilst creating art to emphasize all of the work that has been done before us and all of the work that has to be done for the future. I was most inspired by the moments of being in your body for the first time after self acceptance and the power that comes from it. I was also inspired by the way platonic and romantic love had carried through the lives of the elders. Using these main inspiration points I created three multimedia pieces to try to do some justice to the beauty of love and acceptance that comes with age. It is truly a privilege that I am eager to experience and earn in my lifetime.
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