At the climax of our self-destructive relationship with nonhuman sites and bodies, Alluvium recalls a dissociated image of a floodplain, a source of vital soils and nourishing waters, and renders a barren, facsimiled landscape in its place. Echoes of topographic and stratigraphic systems are reproduced through the precise logic of industrial cement casting, a process designed to cover swaths of excavated land in a repeated rock face or texture, camouflaging inherent destruction. With its contrived technique laid bare, fallible, and delicate, Alluvium craves a new tenderness, if possible, between humans and nature.

Alluvium was exhibited in the Whitman College 2020 Virtual Senior Art Thesis Show. The original project plans were intended for large scale installation in the Sheehan Gallery, but due to the advent of COVID-19 campus shutdowns, I completed a limited version of my thesis at home.