Spliced Connector: Winter 2023 Exhibition - Into Wildness
Press Release
"There is a human wildness held beneath the skin that finds all barriers brutishly unbearable." -Jim Harrison
In this world there is a tumbling of matter and spirit, which makes for wildness. This tumbling makes space for places thought carries us to, in consideration of the roiling change we live with.
There are many different ideas about what wildness is. Something untethered; irrationality, extreme emotional engagement. Letting loose. Stochastic. The implication is that something which is wild is untamed, and untamable.
Entering a woods that is untended we may pause as we try to pick out a pathway, or decide where our footsteps will permit forward motion. An abandoned garden may have that look, too: the wildness of 6' weeds interspersed with a delicate rose bloom, an impenetrable morass of growth. The wild creatures from tiny to big that inhabit this Earth are wary of us, as we are wary of them. Wildness has a thorough otherness to it that we rarely bring close.
Wildness is our own judgmental label for the otherness of the living world. As we study the plants and animals, bacteria, mycorrhizal networks, wildness is diffused, and we come to recognize, come to know wild things to the point of familiarity. If we could access our own gut systems and witness the wild biomes present there, digesting our food, sieving nutrients from fiber, we might recoil, or turn away in disbelief. Wildness is inside of us, deeply influencing our thoughts, choices, and daily routines.
Wildness often brings us to a sense of wonder. These works are meant to do that; to help us engage with our curiosity, and our imagination. In that way, wildness enables our renewed attachment to our physical presence within our world.
