Artist Statement

Constant movement has allowed me access to worlds filled with people I would’ve never met otherwise. From a young age, I learned that the best way to remember these people who shaped me was through the ink-stained pages of my notebooks. That same attention to memory and connection is why I’m invested in themes of ethical lines and where we draw them within a culture that preaches connectedness while forcing individuals further into isolation, often through technology

At ten years old, I performed as Iris in Jennifer Haley’s The Nether, examining where humanity draws moral lines in virtual worlds. I recall audience members leaving as I performed a monologue seducing an older man. This is what fascinates me: what themes have us lurching out of our seats? Are we made uncomfortable by the story itself, or by the fact that these stories extend beyond the enclosed walls of the theatre? From begging my mom to choose The Chilean Miner’s: Buried Alive for my childhood mother-daughter book club, to recently interviewing artist Lee Ledare for a personal paper on his work exploring complex familial relationships and his mother’s shift from ballerina to sex worker, these questions have long occupied my curiosity.

Currently, I am writing a full-length play exploring nihilistic online communities that manipulate minors into committing acts of harm. These groups are real, with both victims and perpetrators being young children. My play explores two sisters who, after moving to a new town, find themselves on opposite sides of one of these online networks. Through this writing, I seek to understand how the human need for connection can give rise to destructive behaviors.