The Substance of Nothing 

2023 

Vinyl, Contact Paper 

This visual poem serves as the title piece for my exhibition, featuring strategically placed blanks all hinting at the word "Nothing." Like in the Shakespearean comedy, “Much Ado About Nothing,” my work illuminates the significance around things and ideas that might be associated with the term, “Nothing.” I explore the hidden aspects of existence and things that are less visible– like emotions, certain kinds of labor, or materials and processes– that have been deemed useless in a culture fixated on productivity. 

In her essay Poetry Is Not A Luxury Audre Lorde offers these words in relation to teasing out the substance of nothing: 

This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt.  

These installations are inspired by this kind of poetry.