Jacqueline Ito

Central to my work is the earthly significance of the environment on both an ecological and interpersonal level. By integrating foraged organic materials such as branches and collected personal remains (e.g cotton pads, dust and food scraps), I aim to breathe new life into commonly discarded waste products by highlighting their inherent material animacy. Drawing on the accumulated ideas of post-human thinkers like Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing, who encourage the need to envision new, speculative visions for interspecies worldings, my works depict a continuous evolution of cross-contamination between subjects and creative approaches.  

Another key aspect of my practice is the idea of cross-species companionship and the universal search for refuge, comfort, and safety.  After all, when a gathering of flies sits at the edge of my windowsill or a spider spins a web in the corner of my bedroom, they have found a space for refuge—not unlike myself, they have found a home to return to. If our habitats, man-made or organic, are much more populated than we might know at first glance, how could we cohabitate a space?  

In my continuous pursuit of cross-contamination between both material and subject matter, it is important to notice how we are not nearly as alone as we might initially believe, nor have we ever been. Our matter, both human and more-than-human, is intrinsically entangled. Perhaps one can find the more-than-human creatures that might populate our surroundings, if one only knows where to look for them.