Chthulucene Dream-Land: States of RealityGraphite drawing (360” X 48”), canvas, wood, sand, reflective Mylar, rhubarb leaves, wax
2022
Developed during my doctoral research, Chthulucene Dream-Land: States of Reality is an immersive installation that includes a thirty-foot drawing informed by Donna Haraway’s concept of the Chthulucene. Here, the Chthulucene is explored as a way of thinking beyond anthropocentrism to emphasize multispecies entanglement, composting, and “making-with” in damaged worlds. Fastened to a rounded, floating wall, the work is displayed in a way to heighten presence as viewers move alongside a sequence of interlinked image segments: hybrid figures, absurd vignettes, and unsettling transformations that touch on environmental remediation and destruction, capitalism, colonialism, consumerism, plasticity, privilege, and ongoingness. Surrounding the installation, wax skull sculptures of human, bear, and beaver rest on decaying rhubarb leaves harvested from my mother’s garden, reinforcing themes of impermanence, decomposition, and reworlding. Reflective Mylar on the exterior of the structure subtly distorts the gallery and the viewer’s reflection, inviting a perspective shift and an expanded sense of entanglement within more-than-human ecologies.
This project is generously support by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program (OGS).
Photos by Dickson Bou