Pronounshe, him, his, his, himself

Department/College/UnitArts Division

TitleAssistant Professor

AffiliationFaculty

Other UCSC Campus AffiliationCenter for Agroecology
Environmental Studies Department
Film and Digital Media Department

Web SiteWebsite

Primary Office LocationElena Baskin Building H
H8

Office HoursMondays (by appointment)

Mail StopArt Department

Biography, Education and Training

My practice is rooted in site-specificity, which I approach not as a static condition but as an evolving relationship between art, place, and ecology. Over the past two decades, I have explored how artistic processes can engage with environmental and social systems, particularly through food, agriculture, and landscape. I see site-specific art as a form of deep listening—an attunement to the materials, histories, and ecologies of a place that challenges the conventional autonomy of the art object.

Collaboration is central to my work. I often partner with farmers, botanists, cooks, researchers, and local communities, forming networks of exchange that extend beyond traditional art institutions. In Restauro (32nd São Paulo Biennial, 2016), I worked with settlements of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) to create a system of environmental restoration through agroecological practices—rethinking how an artwork might nourish both landscapes and people. This focus on food as a medium continued in projects like my collaboration with foragers, organic growers, and illustrators at the Serpentine Galleries in London (2017), where we developed an edible intervention and public program.

In recent years, I have expanded this research through residencies and academic work, investigating site-specificity in relation to language, translation, and pedagogy. My current project, Dehydrated Landguages, explores how climate, literature, and perception intersect—especially through the metaphors we use to describe arid landscapes. I am interested in how language shapes our ability to sense, respond to, and repair environmental crises.

At its core, my practice seeks to dissolve the distinctions between art and ecology, object and context, artist and collaborator. I approach making as a process of care—learning from the specificity of a place while imagining new ways of inhabiting and restoring it. 

Research Interests

site-specificity, agroecology, agroforestry, climate crisis, environmental perception, language, translation and ecology