There Is No Place
2009
There Is No Place is an investigation into the construction of memory, the idealization of place, and the experience of nostalgia and longing. This body of work reenacts my complex relationship to the iconic desert of my Arizona birthplace. A hand-knit, blue-green sweater, constructed to be worn within the desert environment, accentuates the separation between figure and landscape. While this garment retains the natural association of protection and warmth, it has been designed without a head opening, making it simultaneously absurd and obstructive. Worn within or outside of this landscape, the sweater forcibly impedes and blinds my perception of place, standing in as a rupture between actual experience and memory of experience. The desert, and my relationship to it, is revealed as ambiguous, distanced, and idealized, exposing both the limitations and generative possibilities of memory.