Visions of Deep Future

Visions of Deep Future is an a series of works that attempt to think about life beyond the current constraints of Capitalism and the settler state. To do this, I have come to crafting and foraging as a process oriented approach to amending my own alienation from land-based practices as a deeply disconnected Chicanxperson. I foraged for pampas grass on the homelands of Ohlone peoples as a way to seeing how to rebuild a relationship with a landscape alien to myself. Pampas grass is a deeply invasive plant globally, coming from the Pampas region of South America. It inhabits disturbed locations next to railways, highways, fences, and buildings, and it is annually cut and sprayed with herbicide as a way of managing its growth. Many confuse it for a native plant, its feathery stalks a prized source for home decor. By pulverizing its fibers into pulp, pulling it into paper sheets, folding it into recognizable consumer packaging, and weaving its sharp leaves into a hat, I wanted to practice what future land based cultural practices may feel like. This installation is a culmination of my inquiry and fraught intimacy with this plant, creating an ambiguous speculative world and character, a Martian, as a way to illustrate this transient process. The grass paper tent serves as an ambiguous home for these ideas, and the projection of fire and performance along with glass objects gesture towards this hybrid future way of living and making.