CRN: 3304
Credits: 3
In this course, we will delve into themes of extraction, rest, and exhaustion in the context of the earth’s depleted resources, the culture of burnout, and the relentless push toward data exhaustion. We will engage with questions such as: What if a work is created with its expiration in mind? What if its purpose is to rest? What materials could we use for decomposition and degrowth? How do we perform exhaustion for the camera? Can resistance to the exploitative nature of capitalism manifest as naps, encampments, and rest? We will explore extraction, exhaustion, and rest as starting points for non-production, slow production, degrowth, and what it means to expire a practice. Through this lens, we will critically engage with the pressures of hustle culture, the impact of bromaxxing, pre-workout supplements, metabolic rift, drinks for energy, drinks for rest, planetary mining, and delve into what Byung-Chul Han labels as auto-exploitative behaviors. This course will be composed of exercises, readings, a research presentation, and a final project.
Faculty Bio:
My practice focuses on research, pedagogy, and the critical examination of social, political,
historical, and economic systems that shape labor and knowledge production. Through
sculpture, performance, photography, and writing, I explore how tools, technologies, and
infrastructures—often seen as neutral—are influenced by underlying ideologies of race, value,
and power. My work investigates the lasting impact of oppressive systems, such as the financial
logic of slavery and racist ideologies, on scientific instruments and data production, which
perpetuate inequality. By combining material inquiry with critical theory, I examine labor,
technology, and exhaustion. In projects like “indefatigable,” I focus on the gig economy’s politics
of extraction. Photographs of e-bicycles used by delivery workers highlight these tools as
extensions of the workers themselves, symbolizing global exploitation linked through continuous
extraction. Urban infrastructures and algorithms govern labor, and I incorporate this into
installations, using DIY aesthetics to explore resourcefulness, precarity, and resistance. My work
critiques accepted knowledge while reimagining systems of oppression, labor extraction, and
environmental degradation, revealing how labor and knowledge are shaped by systems of
power.
I earned my BFA from the University of North Texas, my MFA from the University of
Pennsylvania, and also studied at San Antonio Community College. I was a participant in the
Whitney Independent Study Program. I have presented solo exhibitions at the David Salkin
Gallery, KAJE, Petrine, and Y2K Group. My work has been included in group shows at the MIT
List Visual Arts Center, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Parsons School of Design, 52-07 Flushing
Avenue, and Automat Gallery. I was an L.A.B. researcher in residence at The Kitchen in
collaboration with The School for Poetic Computation and participated in the research residency
Site to be Seen at RAIR.
