Superfund Sites / Sites of Toxic Extraction
2018-Ongoing
Sculptures, photographs, video, and text paired with glazes developed using collected raw materials.
This work is slowly in progress....
How do Toxic Sites Hold Memory?
This work is an ongoing series of sculptures, video and text with raw glaze materials gathered from superfund sites, abandoned mining sites, and other sites of extractive land use throughout the United States.
Since 2018, I have been researching and visiting Superfund Sites and other sites of irreversible toxic extraction, to which I have a personal connection. When safe to do so, I collect raw materials from those sites. Additionally, I am slowly gathering oral histories about these sites.
This research and collection process stems from my familial experience of living in/on sites of toxic extraction. I grew up in a town that sits on top of an abandoned gold mine. The topsoil of that mine is heavily contaminated with lead, mercury and arsenic. My mother and grandmother grew up ON one of the nation’s largest Superfund Sites, also contaminated with lead, mercury and arsenic. That side Is downwind from another, very prominent nuclear Superfund Site, contaminated with Uranium, Plutonim, and other radioactive materials.
Through this work, I am asking:
What led to the creation of these sites? Are they still being created? How am I part of their creation? What worldviews led to the creation and unregulation of these sites? What can we learn from the past? Will the entire world eventually become an (undesignated) Superfund Site?
*this work is currently in progress — more info posted soon*
I plan to begin exhibiting this work in early 2026.
Since 2018, I have been researching and visiting Superfund Sites and other sites of irreversible toxic extraction, to which I have a personal connection. When safe to do so, I collect raw materials from those sites. Additionally, I am slowly gathering oral histories about these sites.
This research and collection process stems from my familial experience of living in/on sites of toxic extraction. I grew up in a town that sits on top of an abandoned gold mine. The topsoil of that mine is heavily contaminated with lead, mercury and arsenic. My mother and grandmother grew up ON one of the nation’s largest Superfund Sites, also contaminated with lead, mercury and arsenic. That side Is downwind from another, very prominent nuclear Superfund Site, contaminated with Uranium, Plutonim, and other radioactive materials.
Through this work, I am asking:
What led to the creation of these sites? Are they still being created? How am I part of their creation? What worldviews led to the creation and unregulation of these sites? What can we learn from the past? Will the entire world eventually become an (undesignated) Superfund Site?
*this work is currently in progress — more info posted soon*
I plan to begin exhibiting this work in early 2026.
To date, materials and stories have been collected from:
- Anaconda Copper Mine, Yerington, NV
- Bunker Hill Mine, Kellog, ID
- Oak Ridge Nuclear Site, Oak Ridge, TN
- Hanford Nuclear Site, Kennewick, WA
- Berkeley Pit, Butte, MT
- Malakoff Diggins, Nevada County, CA
- Empire Gold Mine, Grass Valley, CA
- Lake Onondoga, Syracuse, NY
- Borax Mine, Death Valley, CA
- Salton Sea, Salton City, CA
