RESEARCH STATEMENT
As a photofilmic artist and visual storyteller, my creative practice is concerned with human nature in an ecological world, and the ways in which we construct ourselves through our environments. Currently working in long-form photographic projects, my background in filmmaking informs how I organize images into lyrical sequences, whether in the book form or gallery wall. These designs become an act of speculative world-building, raising questions about a sustainable future. Having returned to the Midwest for a faculty position at KU after a decade in industry with National Geographic, Discovery, and VICE, my goal is to represent and connect local stories to a national and international ecological conversation, revealing the universal through the particular as an entryway to shared experience and impact.
To do this work requires being present in a place for extended periods of time, returning again over months and years in order to meaningfully collaborate with community and land. To support this approach, I have been consistently successful in my time at KU at building a record of grant funding and residency awards for working in place. In the last six years I have been awarded nine (9) internal and external grants totaling over $45,000 and six (6) competitive national and international residencies including with the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska, and the U.S. National Park Service.
As an Assistant Professor of Photography in KU’s Department of Design, my advancement towards promotion and tenure is measured by these awards and honors, major bodies of visual work produced, and the scope of their dissemination through exhibitions, publications, and presentations. Through diligent effort over the past six years, I have excelled in these areas, producing five (5) major bodies of work and collaborating on others, which have collectively appeared in over 30 peer-reviewed exhibitions and 16 publications. I have presented my work across the country at nearly 20 conferences, festivals, colleges and other institutions, and abroad in a series of artist talks and workshops across China in partnership with Mido Art Education and Peking University. Having established my practice nationally, going forward I will continue to expand my reach internationally, starting with a grant-funded residency at Three Shadows Photography Art Center in China and other collaborations as outlined later in my goals for the next five years.
Building this practice while maintaining a full teaching load and serving as Program Director for Photography for five of my six years, I have achieved prominence not only for myself but for my school. I have been able to leverage my reputation and connections forged through residencies, conferences, and industry to the benefit of KU through community collaborations, guest speakers, critics, mentorship of students, and employment of alumni. As such, my scholarly and creative accomplishments not only exceed my department’s research criteria for tenure, but most critically model an active program for students as they establish their own practices in dialogue with the world.