Mulberry tree leaf specimen, dried rattlesnake tails, junebugs, home videos from 1991, display monitors, wood, plexiglass vitrine

Backyard Collection is an experiment in conjuring artifacts from my childhood to explore the intersection of place and identity. My memories com from first-hand experience, re-told stories, Kodak photographs, and a singular reel of home movie footage. This project focuses on the significant objects captured from the assortment of documentation that has morphed into stored memories from my father’s backyard in rural New Mexico. Junebugs, rattlesnakes, and the non-bearing Mulberry tree are legends of my past, stored away as artifacts that mark significant events in my coming of age. Video footage, biological specimen, and writing are presented atop a fireplace mantle that brings the architecture of domestic space into the language of museum presentation and display.