Veronica Verkley 2021 Finalist

Organic, flexible forms are assembled mostly by hand: weaving, wrapping and stitching the way animals or birds would construct their dwellings and habitats. Subtle movement is implied through pose or multiples; or actualized, with pumps or motors. 

I experience living in the bush as an observational practice that informs my art practice. Every morning for the past 10 years I’ve filmed a few seconds of the view from my cabin looking south, capturing seasonal rhythms, creating a slow time-lapse of change. Over time, patterns develop, individuals appear, narratives unfold. I’m acquainted with the birds and animals whose territories I share, tracing their comings and goings, their mark-makings, nests and songs: ephemeral events witnessed, recorded and remembered.

Nature is endlessly narrating stories — we just have to be still long enough to read them. I try to bring this into my practice: a translation of what it means to be here.  

A life-sized flexible figure of a collapsed horse, suspended by ropes. It’s heavy- about as heavy as a horse. But if enough people work together to pull on the ropes & pulleys, they can get it to stand.. until they let go and it slumps back down. I want people to feel the weight of it, the responsibility of it. The movements won’t look quite right; it will be impossible to coordinate.

video: vimeo.com/204626447

An abandoned house in the woods gradually collapses as time, nature, and the elements inevitably destroy and transform it. Its an animation shot over many months, but reads as a time-lapse shot over many years.

Changes in our environment are nearly imperceptible unless sped up as a time-lapse: then suddenly trees spring up and fall back to earth; generations of species eat, sleep & die; days, seasons & decades cycle; the very shape of the land fluctuates. Climates and ecologies falter, improvise, regenerate, flourish. Incremental shifts add up to epic transformations. Built structures eventually collapse; living systems adapt and evolve. Life is resilient.

video: vimeo.com/531476702 (4 people simultaneously pumping up 4 of the figures; video credit: Devon Berquist)

A group of animal forms built from scavenged plastic bags are brought to life when air is blown into them. Simple foot pumps operated by viewers inflate each figure individually. When the air flow/support stops, the figures slowly collapse back into themselves.

Moved by the year that was 2020, when it seemed the whole world was struggling to breathe; but it is our collective breath that unites us, and by conspiring together (con-spire = to breathe together, in-spire = to take in breath) we can support each other and pump/lift each other up.