The natural world has a strong influence on me, and I find myself constantly yearning to create something between nature and culture that is neither fully one nor the other. For me, the forest can become the studio, the studio can become the forest. My work considers the ways in which experiences and perspective help us explore our surroundings to create memories. My research into the aesthetics of the institutional collection and maintenance of artifacts and specimens is informed by actual work experience in scientific lab as well as in public and private museum collections. These spaces where collections are stored, protected, categorized, and documented are important to me, and I have a particular interest in the museum crate, or shipping crate, as a vehicle to create works dealing with movement and the psychology of collecting. Collecting, observing, and processing curiosities is an important part of my creative process. I am driven to capture the invigorating feeling of discovery and preserve it in my work. This serves to satisfy anxiety over loss of memories as well as to transfer them into something meaningful that I wish to share with others.

Really, there’s nothing here. It’s like a place where you live. The only useful thing about the studio is that after some time you can imagine something. A forest, for example. I walk in it. Today it is nothing for me, but perhaps in two weeks it will become something.”

- Christian Boltanski, ‘Studio Visit’, Tate Magazine, no.2, Summer, 2005