Land Enveloped

Snow piled up so high in our backyard that it buried our fence. That’s when my brother and I started digging. We dug until we found the ground again—old grass long dead from the cold. Then we started building tunnels. Like ants, my brother and I shaped a new, unseen landscape under the crusty top layer of snow. In the summer, the ground was solid and unchanging, but in the Alaskan winter, it was easy to manipulate the terrain with just our bodies. Snow turned the environment into a vast expanse of playful possibilities.

When looking back at my childhood growing up in Alaska, I am struck by the magic in the landscape and how I was immersed in creation every time I bundled up to go outside. In Land Enveloped, shapes from mountains, fish nets, and iceberg striations come together in layers of fabric that hang from the ceiling and form pliable walls. The space reveals a variety of paths, from narrow hallways, large expanses, and moments of rest. This is to impart a sense of discovery. Because the walls are fabric, the environment is manipulatable; a new direction can be chosen by lifting a sheet or crawling under a low opening. Like my childhood experience in Alaska, magic can be found from navigating Land Enveloped.

This project came from the ongoing series Northern Catch, which I have been pursuing since 2017. In Northern Catch, I explore my Alaskan origins with a Panglossian nostalgia through artwork that is mostly two-dimensional. Land Enveloped brings those same ideas into a three-dimensional interactive space.