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This social sculpture was created from willow gathered in the San Lorenzo river over the course of two years. Willow grows primarily in waterways, places that are highly politicized by park authorities, city policies, and private individuals. Unhoused people inhabit such rivers and willow provide shelter for these people. Because of this, willow is often chopped down to manage unhoused populations while making trails accessible to those who hike and bike through the forest. I use the process of harvesting willow as a speculative cultural practice, as it is used in medicine and structurally by Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island. The complicated relations this plant finds itself in nowadays makes foraging complicated by these systems of surveillance.

The form of a hoop, a shape the branches want to take and hold in tension, are joined by plastic zip-ties, forming a dwelling-like dome that mimics playgrounds, geodesic domes, temazcales, and other traditional enclosures. I use zip-ties as an ad-hoc method that gestures to the complicated nature of gathering this plant, giving the shadows of the hoops a barbed, cage-like appearance. People are invited to crawl inside this ambiguous space to think through materiality, body, and relationality.

Amending Worlds, Coha-Gunderson Speculative Futures Fellowship Exhibition, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.