CSPA Quarterly: Hyperobjects Issue 15

In December of 2016 my work was featured in the CSPA Quarterly: Hyperobjects. Below is the text from that issue and the subsequent pages. To purchase the issue in either print or digital format click here.

Collapse, Decay and Obfuscate.

My work addresses how personal memories and cultural/collective memories overlap; investigating place, history and technology. Using public documents that are digitally ubiquitous and visits to sites of significance, my research-based practice questions how perceptions of history are remembered and mis-remembered.

The topics I research have a tendency to build onto one another, disregarding artistic intentions such as material or series. The Loxahatchee River investigation came from an earnest investigation of a childhood landscape that I thought I knew well. The series was meant as a departure from preceding research on the messy symbiotic nature of Chicago’s public parks and that city’s history with nuclear development and waste. However the subject of the Loxahatchee River became more complicated as I began working with it, unfolding into a list of seemingly paradoxical identities; an aquifer that provides water to the county, a missile tracking annex, my childhood summer camp, the former location of a top secret US military base, a battle site from the 2nd Seminole War, a victim of consistent environmental damage due to government corruption and corporate influence. My current teaching position is within a mile of this public land. Subsequent work has explored such topics as: drone technology, nuclear technology, the military industrial complex and disposable identity.

Sarah K. Knudtson is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who currently resides in South Florida with her partner Stephen Germana and their cat Roland. In her research-based practice, she explores the idea of memory and the memorial. Using information gathered from government, corporate and nonproft websites, Knudtson creates journeys, documenting these trips through the language of the tourist; souvenirs, slides, journals and a variety of professional and pedestrian photography. Through this work, collective and personal memories begin to collapse, decay or obfuscate.