Pursuing a PhD degree

Supervisor:  Dr. Juanita Sundberg

Research Statement: I am an interdisciplinary researcher examining the use of plants in modifying landscapes as a part of colonial expansion, nation building, and related exercises of power. I investigate the ways that settler societies and other nation building projects employ plants as a part of asserting dominance over a territory. Specifically, I am interested in particular species and what they might indicate about the layered history of a landscape. I examine plant species that are part of producing landscapes of whiteness, in contrast to what have been constructed as wild, untamed, or exotic environments. Coupled with my research is an artistic practice. I am currently focused on weaving and fibre arts as a form of material mapping of place. Through my practice I seek to engage with the entanglements with land base and cartography by producing tapestries as a creative mapping that represents layered histories of a landscape. The woven pieces include invasive plant species, fibre from domestic animals, and elements of introduced species of various kinds. While the representation is slightly abstract – these maps do not display to-scale spatial relationships – the mapping is materially grounded and relational, binding varied fibres into an intimate piece. This work is a way of creatively and critically responding to varied relationships between humans and the non-human world, natural and cultural landscapes, settler colonialism, and navigating complex identities through both conventional research and an embodied practice.