The 'studio' has become an interior and exterior work space, in collaboration with the richness of the environment. While the Baltimore County location (seen on this website) is scenic, the sounds of birds are heard with military test explosions from Aberdeen Proving Ground on the Eastern Shore. Fighter jets, helicopters and drones fly overhead with satellites and airplanes. Guns and liquor, left behind by the previous owner are found in the attic with labels dated 'June 1978.' The NRA changed it's mission and grew dramatically after the civil rights movement in the 1970's.
Most guns in the US are owed by white men and women in rural counties. These art projects reflect evidence of American history - land taken from native peoples, then protected with guns by settlers and descendants recusing themselves of the initial theft. A buried threat of violence resides in how guns and land are folded together in freedom of individual rights. There is as well, because of the internet and constant monitoring of land and human movements, a lost sense of private place beneath the pastoral views and flocks of birds eating the Tulip Poplar seedlings in treetops. Revealing this hidden landscape means facing the social landscape humans have made, along with questions about my own complicity in this reality. through these environmental and drawn works, I have sought to enliven an awareness of human bodies on the land: to encourage the agency that comes with awareness of the impact of human movement. These works were initially shown in order to bring people out to the rural location... to be a part of a couple of weekends and season. The site can not express the movements of the wind and trees, but it gives a glimpse of what it might have been like to walk between divergent works.
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Borrowing from discussions with a NZ friend (Trudy Lane), I cut a deep time line to walk through (like a maze) in the tall grasses: a walk through time. What was striking to most who experienced this walk was the distance walked before humans appear at the end of the line. Our presence and eventual vacancy is considered through this work. An arrowhead was found on the hillside after the Deep Walk in Time was created & shared: we are passing through & the shadow of native people remain.
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In 2017, two works were continued: Solitary and UNHCR Tent, both outdoor works made of self-seeded Poplar tree saplings, laid out on the land remembering refugees of different sorts.
Finally, there is an exploration of a different practice of drawing, moved off the page and onto the grass with a shifting topography. Leaving behind the pencil, drawing tools become flags, branches, panels and string.
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-Renee van der Stelt
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Map at right: given to visitors upon arrival at Black Box/Adjacent Body, 11/2016
