"They Call Me Theirs"

“They Call Me Theirs”, addresses man’s desire to mediate the natural environment through technology. Forster’s multi-media project includes sound, sculpture, video and inkjet prints mounted on aluminum panels. By creating an audiovisual experience of the four seasons and placing them inside a rustic cabin, Forster plays with the way we have come to understand and experience nature.

Flower Girl probes the perception of innocence, and the transition from childhood to womanhood, during a time of confusing norms and expectations. The video depicts, on separate screens, a girl at play in a pictorial setting, and an adult female systematically constructing a silk flower. Their relationship is ambiguous, and the piece beckons the question: can the girl hold on to her identity, cultivate her aspirations, or is she predestined to be a construct of her environs? And what of the older woman? Is she the architect, a symbol of cultural intentions, or an obedient pawn?

The project was activated by a convergence of multiple events: my daughter’s 13th birthday; her distress over not being a flower girl in a family wedding; the participation of women in the Arab Spring, and their likely diminished role under rising conservative movements; the right wing “war on women” movement in the US; and the National Institute of Mental Health’s new findings on “Nature vs. Nurture”.

The project includes a 4-channel video, digital photographs and intimate sculptures.

Curatorial Projects

Director of LiveBox Gallery and independent curator. LiveBox is a non-for-profit gallery focused on video and new media arts. LiveBox is a roving gallery, deploying Chicago's neighborhoods as exhibition sites and screening opportunities.

For more information: www.liveboxgallery.com

"Flower Girl – Poppy", inkjet print, 21"X28"

A key component of the piece resides with the flower props. They appear throughout the video and in a separate series of digital photographs. Each flower is hand painted and chosen for its floriographic name, based on the Victorian Era practice of communicating through flowers.

The nuances of this language are mostly forgotten, but the implications for women still linger – the perfect woman must still be pure (Lotus) of body, innocent (Daisy) in spirit, and a wildcat (Poppy) in bed.

Archival inkjet prints are 21″X28″