artist statement
The momentum of my work is to see and understand the ways we are collaborating, in this time and Space, with all the Beings here with us. What does it feel and look like, to engage in this collaboration ethically, with intent?
Building, witnessing and celebrating Kin, engaging in improvisative συμ ποίησις.
Sympoiesis, making-together, is weaving Webs of Relations.
At the invitation of Fig Tree, Γιαγιά, Yiayia, my Grandmother, a Matriarchy of Yellowjackets, The Wetland, Western Red Cedar, and countless more, I am an inter-being collaborator working to understand Home.
I am a greek immigrant/white settler artist, living on the Lands of the Squaxin Island and Nisqually Tribes, the Homeland of the Steh-Chass peoples. What does Home mean, far from the Lands of my Ancestors, living on Land stolen through genocide and continuing colonization?
How can I honor this Land, honor the Indigenous peoples of this Land, honor the Beings here with me? How do I practice Ξενία, Xenia, the Sacred Relationship of Guest Friendship, though I am uninvited here?
In my greek culture, Ξενία gives me Sacred duties as a Guest. I use these roles from my Ancestral culture as guides for establishing Relations, as I learn and follow the protocols of the First Peoples here. It is not perfect, it's complicated by the legacy of genocide, ongoing oppression and colonization, and the doctrine of discovery that justifies these acts of continued violent violation.
Yet here I find a map to move forward, a way to weave tangible Connections. Perhaps through this συμ ποίησις we can dismantle the tools of white supremacy, colonization, extractive capitalism, and human supremacy.
I am an improviser, I use this way of moving in the world to give and share the offerings I bring, to listen and receive, in hopes that borders and categories defining/confining us disintegrate. To me Home radiates through my Body, my center in a Web of Kinship.
My Desire is to weave Webs – connecting my Body, all the Beings here in me and with me, my Children, the Land we inhabit, the First Peoples on whose Land we live, my Community, the Lands our Ancestors came from, and the words and sounds and actions that hold our truths.
My performances are mindful Connection with the Sacred. My writings, community engagement projects, and music focus on revealing and reveling in our sharing precious time and Space together, in συμ ποίησις, with our Bodies, lifetimes and Ancestral Lines of stories and Relations, our particular intersections intersecting.