A Question of Place
Artist Statement
What does Place know about me that no one else does?
Am I made more of Place than people?
Who would we be if we all spoke the languages of our Places?
The living relationship we have with place and its aliveness in our own bodies is what drives my work. I believe that everything is animate and infused with energy that is ready and waiting to be in relationship with us. That we are made of place.
The question of how places and things make us who we are is at the core of my creative process. In particular, place has a ghostly role that I believe is more influential than we might imagine.
That life energy that can be sensed everywhere, from animals, plants and fungi, to trees, stones and wind, is a motif that infuses my fiction, poetry, visual and conceptual art, and film work.
In an object-based culture that uses an object-based language, it is now more important than ever to remember that life is not made up of “resources” for us to use, but that we are in relationship with everything. Through my work, I show and explore those living relationships.
Accordingly, the questions I want to ask are rooted in discovering not just the look of a place, but how we interact with it, how it interacts with us and how we are having a conversation and acknowledging kinship.
“The life in everything and our collective connections are important to see and remember if we want to live in a balanced thriving world.”
My mediums are interdisciplinary while the message remains the same: the life in everything and our collective connections are important to see and remember if we want to live in a balanced, thriving world. In fact, varying mediums are essential to answer these questions from various viewpoints. Visual art offers an image based context, fiction and poetry invite the reader to participate with their own imagination, film creates an immersive world that a viewer might not have personally imagined or conversely, recognizes immediately, and conceptual art tends to combine all of the above.
In my process as a writer, the place where the story occurs is sometimes the main character, often supporting, but always there. And as a filmmaker and production designer, I believe that creating a meaningful visual world where the characters live is paramount to how they are perceived, including making use of our local geography and places that are important to me. And as a visual and conceptual artist, orienting the subject in a place-based context is at the center of my process. Each medium informs the others, making the interdisciplinary imperative.
I endeavor to bring viewers, participants or readers into a living world in order to either see it in a way they may not have previously noticed, or feel suddenly at home, remembering and knowing their own place. It’s a constant, astonishing process.
— Kary Hess