Second Place // Artist Statement
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fear is in the air … about the state of the world getting worse, more complicated, and busier. At the very least, we are immersed in a time of unprecedented rapid change — in our cultural makeup, in our social structures and identities, and in our relationship to the rest of the world. It seems that everyone and everything is in flux, and we don't know how to go forward without losing what we like from the past. How do we navigate the unknown when the sand keeps shifting beneath our feet?

Second Sight is a series of visual art works using layered paintings to glimpse multiple truths beneath the surface. Second Place, a text-based companion to that series, began as a way to explore and honor the people who have fallen through the cracks as everything changed around them. In my own travels, I was struck by how easily people got lost in the middle, unable to move forward or back — immigrants caught in limbo without a passport in detention centers in the Czech Republic; physicists in Kyrgyzstan with no hope of ever working in their field; Bulgarians worried about getting jobs with American companies; refugee families living permanently in temporary dwellings; Tibetans moving from mountains to the tropics; and immigrants everywhere trying to live together and keep it together in two worlds at once.

On top of that, each of is trying to balance bicultural traditions in ourselves. Whether we are biracial, celebrate mutliple religious traditions, have been adopted, or are trying to live between different subcultures, many of us maintain relationships across gaps and struggle to reconcile allegiences within ourselves. As nations become increasingly diverse, how do we construct community? Confronting so much possibility and variety can be overwhelming. We have many examples of how to protect and preserve our traditional ways of life within each cultural paradigm, yet few models exist today that integrate and celebrate the range of experiences we all bring to the table.

So much seems to be about change. Change and courage. Courage to live with instability and insecurity. Courage to live on unfirm ground. Courage to embrace it all — all the possibilities open to us, all the complexity, all the truths.