I recently completed my MFA (just waiting to defend my thesis) and I thought I would share the final pieces of my project.
The main focus of this MFA project is to explore the
adaptive relationship between wild roses and a metal, gridded fence found on
the edge of a golf course beside a small forest near my home in Northern
Alberta, Canada. My theory is that this interactive relationship is a metaphor
for the connection between humans and the natural environment. I am principally
interested in how the human-built fence conforms, over time, to the natural
shapes of the wild rose and is eventually overtaken and deteriorates. Despite
the invasive human interaction with the natural environment in the act of
fence-building, the wild rose grows back from its root system, adapts to its
new surroundings and continues to flourish.
While I feel passionately about the seriousness of the
negative impact humans can have upon the environment, I am choosing to look at
the other side of the fence... literally. There are many plants that become
endangered and eventually extinct due to human contact; however, there are also
many plants that are walked on, dug up, ploughed under and littered upon, yet
they grow again and again and continue to flourish. The wild rose is a plant
that flourishes.
