Installation view, Self/Realization: 2024 MFA Thesis Exhibition. Photo: Wes Battoclette, 2024. Images courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH.

In Touching Grass (from a distance), my aim was to encapsulate the feelings of nostalgia I have for the internet that I grew up with and the frustration that I have with the current state of the internet while also leaning into an optimistic perspective in which I believe there’s still hope to pull back on my own reliance on technology, essentially leaning into ethos of the “touch grass” mentality. The work is an installation featuring a large wishing well carved from insulation foam and coated entirely in a silver paint, evoking the futuristic Y2K chrome aesthetic. This underscores our current reality, suggesting that the future we once imagined is now our present. Wishing wells represent cultural beliefs in magic and the capacity to shape destiny through the supernatural. This concept is based on the belief that thoughts (or wishes) combined with interactions with the physical environment can influence the outcome of events and objects. The well represents hope and optimism, something that the post-pandemic world is in dire need of. Participants of wishing wells acknowledge, consciously or not, that things in their life could get better.