This multi-media installation included works from To Understand a Tree, Audubon’s Birds, and the video Motion Study: American Dream, and was presented at the Mazmanian Gallery at Framingham State University in February 2020. In the context of environmental crisis and a critical consideration of settler-colonial American legacies, the works included reflect the artist’s lifelong engagement with nature and the built environment of the American northeast. Rooted in a contemplative mindset, the exhibit sought to ask, what is it to look honestly, critically, and authentically at the American landscape?

Videos were shot at a variety of locations, including the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in central New York State, a second-growth mixed deciduous forest in western Massachusetts, and a section of the Northeast corridor from the window of a passenger train. Audubon’s Birds investigates the legacy of naturalist and artist John James Audubon, with drawings of taxidermied bird specimens that once belonged to him. To Understand a Tree is an ongoing multimedia installation work that explores the complex, politicized interrelationship of wooden furniture production and the North American forest.