I’m a sculptor from New Jersey, and my work explores the complex relationships between people, species, and spaces, particularly in the American context. Living near the Meadowlands, a marshland area in northern New Jersey, and crossing it nearly every day, I’ve become a witness to the layers of dreams, ambitions, and failures—both personal and institutional—that have sunk into its polluted waters over decades of development, neglect, and cleanup. These Superfund sites, rare cracks in the myth of American exceptionalism, serve as a kind of threshold from the profane to the sacred. They are tributes to the decaying remnants of industrial ambition, now transformed into unexpected refuges for both human and non-human communities, spaces that resist official recognition or control.

In my work, I also consider the land as a kind of memory. We, along with other species, respond to this place, and in turn, it responds to us. In drive-over country, next to major arteries of economic movement, time can move slowly and subtly, preserving the shrapnel of personal and historical events. My series of models, or mini-dioramas, engage with this environment and other sites like it. These mini-dioramas depict abandoned or neglected buildings and infrastructure, populated with detritus, plant and animal species, and always a miniature version of my body responding to the environment in each. I choose this mini-diorama mode because it has historically been used to educate about human and natural history and to propose new building plans. 

In Dream Mound, I used satellite 3D renderings and topographical data to reconstruct the site of Nancy Holt’s proposed yet unrealized land work, Sky Mound—a former landfill in the Meadowlands now blanketed with dirt and plant life. My work integrates diverse materials and processes, such as cyanotype, to honor natural forms while acknowledging pollution and chemical waste as deliberate acts of mark-making rather than mere accidents. I incorporated found plants and discarded materials from the site to create contact prints, layering them with Holt’s blueprint proposal. These prints are partially concealed by laser-engraved plexiglass solar panels, reflecting the site’s current use for renewable energy extraction. My practice frequently incorporates metal, wood, 3D-printed plastic, and ceramic, mirroring the eclectic materials of the post-industrial landscape. At its core, my work explores intersections where history and potential futures converge, particularly in complex environments like the Meadowlands.

By activating my work with the varying failed and successful intentions of human and other species, I seek to find spiritual and practical value in the contested spaces of urban outskirts. I like to think that hidden in these landscapes must lie some redeeming medicine amidst the skeletons of extractive economic models.