Touching Grass (from a distance)

Installation view, Self/Realization: 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition.
Photo: Wes Battoclette, 2024. Images courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH.

In "Touching Grass (from a distance)", I was considering both my nostalgia for the internet I grew up with and my frustration with its current state. At the same time, the work carries a cautious optimism, wondering whether it is still possible to step back from our reliance on technology and re-establish a connection with the physical world.

The wishing well draws on longstanding cultural beliefs in magic and the possibility of influencing our lives through wishes and physical rituals. To make a wish is to acknowledge that circumstances could change—that the future is not entirely predetermined. In this sense, the well becomes a symbol of hope and optimism, particularly within a post-pandemic world that can often feel defined by uncertainty and disconnection. The act of making a wish, however small, becomes an intentional moment of imagining that things could be different. It was important to me that my thesis work be interactive, especially in a newly post-pandemic context where physical presence and shared space had become so charged. Viewers are invited to approach the well one at a time, stepping into a quiet, individual encounter as they look down to watch the film playing at the bottom of the well.