Situationships: Creating Situations and Relationships for and With Material

Catherine Spencer, Syracuse University

Abstract

The ability to heal, adapt, and evolve is essential to thriving within new circumstances. These characteristics, which are so easily observed in nature, have been the visual guide to not only the methodology behind my practice but also in how I have learned to make sense of unimaginable emotional pain. By examining each visual and material ingredient that goes into my process, I reveal my imagined world and the systems of power that influence the "situationships" between each object. This paper aims to reflect the essence of my process and art, where chaos is embraced and the precarity of life hangs in the balance.