My paternal great-grandparents, who were legal U.S. residents, emigrated back to their native México during the Great Depression. Their son, my Abuelo (grandfather) who was born in San Antonio, became a U.S. immigrant to México at seventeen. Time passed and fate would again intervene when my father, a chronic asthmatic learned of a place where he could live […]
“Big Yellow Taxi” or “They Paved Paradise and Put in a Parking Lot” They paved paradise And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique And a swinging hot spot Don’t it always seem to go That you don’t know what you’ve got Till it’s gone They paved paradise And put up […]
There are many community gardens in the Phoenix area. They are all used to grow food but they each one is unique. Some provide recreational space for a specific population, while some are used to grow as much food as possible to help those who do not have to eat. The physical garden spaces vary […]
Please Check Surroundings for Safety is a collaboration between my boyfriend and I — and a 2014 Mazda 3. Fascinated by the discovery that our new car had a reverse-facing camera, which enables only when the car is in reverse, we began to text each other images of what the car was “seeing” while we […]
What happens in the landscape beyond the edge of human structure, where the wild and the controlled collide? In this place, we are removed from the order of the urban, but we are not yet surrounded by the wilderness. This place in-between is The Buffer Zone. The Buffer Zone is just beyond the ever-expanding sprawl […]
I first met Sally at a yogurt shop. Inside, she divulged to me some of the most personal and painful periods of her life. I listened to her recall memories of poverty, a drug infested culture, years of neglect and maltreatment, multiple “father figures,” and repeated physical assaults against her. She told me about the […]
Utilizing a multitude of camera systems including a FLIR infrared, 3D video , DSLR, and lenticular images I have attempted an address of this paradox of Urban Heat Island. Creating shifting, user-activated photographs, infrared video tours of the city, and stop motion light studies, this work redefines the spaces of the downtown Phoenix Metro area […]
The Heat(e)scape project emerged when Sean Deckert, an artist interested in the urban heat island effect, met with Karina Benessaiah, a geographer interested in how people perceive and adapt to changing social and ecological systems. Through the combination of infrared & normal video camera systems with interviews and music, this project seeks to articulate a […]