Cultivator (2017-present)
Walking drawings, as labyrinths, explore boundaries, power, and coexistence of humans and earth. We learn by movement through a shared space. When nature and daily life align, it is possible to walk + draw + connect before the tide refreshes our time together.
An archive of cultivators can be found here.
Cultivators are guided by environmental elements, by physical movement, and by social interactions. They are underscored by the pedagogy of Robin Wall Kimmerer who wrote: “We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings (2013).”
In 2020, the global pandemic shifted the way we all move through the world. This link is to a video from the virtual 2020 Walking Arts laboratory in Guimarães, Portugal.
Now More Than Ever… (2009 – 2022)
Daily photo research on movement through the world is an extension of my walking practice. The images are meditations on what Hannah Arendt described as labor, work, and action in The Human Condition (1958) as vita activa.
“Now More Than Ever…” at the Everson Museum of Art – 2022
“Now More Than Ever…” at Installation Space during COVID-19
Ever-growing archive of photos from “Now More Than Ever…”
From the Installation Space text:
“Now More Than Ever…is a challenge to our dangerous ability to use glowing screens to distance ourselves from a physical world, from climate crisis, and from social injustices.
Digital media anchors our bodies to chairs and desks, and our eyes downward to little focal points that can be held in a hand. And yet, these same glowing screens are keeping us safe from pandemic and keeping us connected to each other…Now More Than Ever.“
Drawings & Installations (ongoing)
Ongoing studies of relationships between people and nature are expressed in multiple media such as paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptural works. I strive to reuse materials or make fewer objects that cannot be composted because we are overwhelmed by waste. My research explores Lily Yeh’s proposal that “Tranquility is right at the edge of the chaos” (2014).
Strange Curriculum (2018)
Strange Curriculum is an installation that confronts racism and dangerous ideas that teachers can promote by ignoring the influences in their work. Education is political and complicated. This evolving body of unbeautiful objects bound together in a standard format is influenced by James Baldwin who wrote “The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated” (1963).
Me-Meme (2013)
There are times when my work is blended with the works of others. As an artist-activist, I engage groups of people in making and doing work that expresses something both personal and collective.
Places of Belonging (2011-2013)
In a multi-year residency with “Seymourofus” dual-language elementary students, we developed a demonstration and series of artistic projects to educate city planners about important needs surrounding a school community and at La Casita cultural center in Syracuse, NY.
Laura K Reeder 