by & by

Duke Premiere: May 8, 2021, by invitation only
Streaming Encore with Screen/Society: May 14, 2021, 7pm
Click here to watch the live encore on May 14

Please join me for the virtual premiere of my debut film, by & by, in which I use hand-animation techniques to juxtapose the story of my great-grandmother’s twin boys, whose lives were lost to eclampsia in China in 1919, with that of my own twin boys, who survived the same fate a century later in the United States. Using a range of mixed media, I draw source material from Grace’s memoirs, interviews with Grace’s last surviving child, public archives, and home videos. Words have an important role of this film, appearing as snippets of original text from Grace’s memoirs. The frames of her film are built in layers of acrylic paint and found and personal artifacts. The piece is both deeply personal and universal; I hope it prompts you to see the poetry that underlies our connectedness both in times of grief and in times of joy.

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Works In Rough Going:

Recovery Community and Communication During the Pandemic

As the 2020-2021 Kenan Graduate Fellow in Experimental and Documentary Arts, I have spent the past year working on a body of work in which I examine the struggles and the resilience of the recovery community during COVID-19. For now, the work in this series is only available for the public virtually. Hopefully in the fall, however, the Keohane-Kenan Gallery space will be open to public access again; updates will be posted here. In the meantime, I invite you to view the work virtually.

Please enjoy this video from our event in which we combined an artist talk with a panel discussion bringing together experts in clinical care, poetic expression, and visual art for a conversation about how we capture the ephemeral and often-fragile connections that may be the difference between life and death for those struggling with addiction. The panel featured:

• Kate Daniels, Edwin Mims Professor of English, Vanderbilt University
• Pedro Lasch, Research Professor of Art, Art History, & Visual Studies, Duke University
• Nicole Schramm-Sapyta, Associate Professor of the Practice in the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences