Excavate.

Excavate. was an installation spanning across the four rooms of Sean Christopher Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. Each room played with a different aspect of gathering or processing information and contributed to the overall conceptual grounding for the installation.

Room 1: Extraction

Extraction -- a) The action of taking something (from context) b) The drawing of an inference; a deduction

Room 2: categorization

Categorization — a) The action or process of placing into classes or groups b) The process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood

Room 3: Distinction

Distinction — a) The act of perceiving someone or something as being not the same and often treating as separate b) The action of distinguishing

Room 4: Divulgence

Divulgence — a) To make (information) known b) the act of revealing something that was previously secret or unknown

Statement:

The steel-gray objects in this installation represent my investigation of fragments, artifacts, and relics that I found myself enraptured by in the ancients ruins, museums, and crypts of Italy. They were often humble in origin - loom weights, millstones, bricks - but for me they were charged with mystery. Underlying their visual quietness was a sense of deep history. Their utility was apparent, but the specific functions were not always clear. Could I speak their formal language, and, in doing so, have access to their secrets? My ceramic objects, made in response, share the common grammar of an inflated curve and an edge interrupting and changing the curve's trajectory.

Anthropology is a practice through which we attempt to understand the universal aspects of humanity that persist throughout time. Revelations are made about human history, culture, and ontology, which brings us closer to an understanding of ourselves. I am intrigued by the human compulsion to measure and quantify the world. This impetus signifies our desire to comprehend our existence through empirical processes. By deciding how to measure, it is simultaneously determined what information can be made available. I question what knowledge has been left unrevealed because the tools or formulas necessary are simply not available yet. Each room in this installation focuses on different ways of considering information. In order they are (1) extraction  (2) categorization  (3) distinction and (4) divulgence.