This large-scale earth spiral “The Immeasurable Truth”, made of sea salt and compost from my Grandfather’s garden — which he made with dried leaves from this past Fall — appears to flow in or out of the alcove in the center of the room. This is to reference the veil between worlds; the physical and the spiritual. It’s not evident whether the spiral is going or coming. This simultaneous ebb and flow, this collapsing of time and space, to me, is like a complex poetry representing the lives and the unknown truths of history living in the soil and in the sea; making manifestation both in this realm and beyond. So it’s not so much a question of living or dying, but of traversing physical, psychological and spiritual realms; and living on through re-memory with a cyclical understanding of life. In this space I wanted to be able to touch on the inter-dimensionality and spiritual power of black lives, and to honor black, brown and indigenous lives ripped from us by the continual violences committed against us, both presently and historically.

A Peek Into My Process:
I had to change my thinking and process entirely to work with this virtual space. I wanted to create a space that felt like someplace you could visit in reality. A space that traversed various mediums as a way to explore what sensory exploration was possible in a virtual environment.

I envisioned this large spiral coming out of it, or going into this alcove in the exhibition space. I had to begin to explore how I would bring a three-dimensional installation into this digital space. Since I have no experience with 3-D design, this involved a ton of research and tutorials. Ultimately I ended up building out the spiral in real life using compost from my grandfathers garden with sea salt. Over a total of about 25 hours, potentially more (13 hr of trial and error; 12hr of actually making progress on the piece) I photographed the earth spiral from all angles, then I taught myself to 3D scan the work and use 3D modeling programs to prepare it to go into the space.