Chattering Teeth
The Chattering Teeth series hinges on mimicry and symbolism. Modeled after the 1950s plastic red and white novelty wind-up toy of the same name, these ceramic Chattering Teeth are halted for a moment in their constantly churning distraction and misdirection. Functioning as a metaphor for the propaganda technique of “censorship through noise” these ceramic sculptures speak to the tactic of drowning out dissenting voices and facts by filling the air with a constantly shifting false narrative. Color, materiality and form add to the layers of meaning each set of teeth is dipped in. Some are made from meticulously sifting site-specific dirt with porcelain slip and others are “silenced” by luck and the inferno of the kiln. As we glance from grin to grin, this series probes at the daily labor it takes to wade through this thick nonsense that has been so carefully cultivated for us to breathe.
Parachute Games: A collective nonsense, our exquisite corpse.
2022
Looped video
5 min 9 sec
In this video we see the Westfield State University students working as a team to make sense from the nonsensical images on the parachute pieces. Overtop their search we hear the words of Carl Sagan describing black holes and a computer-generated Carl Sagan mimic reading postings from the sub-Reddit r/QAnonCasualties (this is a forum for the friends and family members who have “lost” loved ones to conspiratorial thinking).
Parachute Games: How Good Are You At Following Directions?
2021
Looped video
2 min 10 sec
This performance took place the summer of 2021 at McColl Center in Charlotte, NC where the community was invited to join in the activation of the parachute that I created during the residency. Volunteers were tasked with shouting from a poem I wrote into a Chattering Teeth covered megaphone, while other volunteers were trained to move the parachute in response to specific keywords heard in the poem (like “utopia” and “volcano”.) In the video the narrator is created by making a “collective voice” from overlaying all of the high school summer interns-in-residence at McColl Center who volunteered to read the poem through the megaphone.
Parachute Games: 6 Feet Enough To See
2021
Looped video
9 min 28 sec
In this video two people are dressed in costumes and acting out synchronized gestures on the grounds of an abandoned Girl Scout Camp from the 90s. The costumes/masks they wear are drawn from the German festival of Fasching, a Spring festival in which citizens don absurd masks and costumes to critique those in power (originally the monarchy) and scare away the demons of Winter with the jingle of their bells. This video was recorded during Winter 2020 just prior to the second spring of the Pandemic.
Parachute Games: And then it stopped and we saw our shadows. Run under anything nearby.
2022
Safety vests, beads, found and reclaimed fabric, paracord, thread and fans
10 FT x 10 FT
Hammer Head people and shadow puppet motifs haunt the surface of this parachute; like stories told through generations they suggest our involvement in propagating narratives from the past and our collective denial and insistence to not-see the hand (just as much a part of the shadow image) that massages the story into a specific outcome.
2021
Gouache on paper
7 IN x 7 IN (without frame)
12 IN x 12 IN (with frame)