“Held Together by its Roots (Turf)” was a participatory performance installation that explores what occupation as resistance can mean within our current political climate. We created an intentional space that was activated weekly with meditative performances and geodesic dome construction sessions with collaborators Stine An, Lorene Bouboushian, Suz Evans, and more.

This performance was a part of “Occupancies,” an exhibition at 808 Gallery at Boston University. Occupancies explores how individual and collective bodies create, negotiate, and inhabit space. Conceived as a response to the current political climate and to forms of personal resistance against systemic injustices, “Occupancies” assembles emerging and mid-career artists who use or intimate the physical body as a politicized site to forefront ideas of agency and visibility. While the exhibition’s aims do not fit resolutely within the couplet of art and activism, “Occupancies” engages with the political and historical dimensions of the term “occupy” today. As part of “Occupancies,” participating artists eBAY, Intelligent Mischief, and I served as “Resident Occupants” and occupied the gallery space through ongoing projects, performances, and interventions during the run of the exhibition. “Occupancies” was curated by Lynne Cooney, Artistic Director, Boston University Art Galleries and Kimber Chewning, Exhibition Assistant Curator and MA Candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Boston University.