Installations & Shows

I AM

I AM is about reclaiming your life and self after surviving a traumatic experience. It is about navigating a change in worldview and reaffirming your right to be. The piece is built from my archive of found objects that I have been collecting since 2006, during many life altering experiences. Combined, they have become a positive reminder of life’s beauty amidst struggle and a tribute to the daily practice of proactively reclaiming yourself.¹

Fictive Kin: An Ethnographic Field Study

Fictive Kin: An ethnographic study of a local music festival and its participants. The study is an inquiry into the relationship between individuals who are not blood relatives but have chosen to bond. The archive that is created from the music festival photos, video, interviews, and other audio recordings are used to demonstrate how the kinship is defined and how it is maintained. The archive explores the recontextualization of culture as it is documented.²

Process[ing]: Time, Place, Collection, and Reflection

The maps are an examination of the effects of urban geography on residents’ daily lives by mapping layers of history, the new city, and the minor interventions I make on the landscapes. They convey the simple idea of a larger economy woven with a personal narrative. My daily walks around the City of Charleston, South Carolina inform this work. My thoughts and practices were influenced by the dérives of the Situationists. The windows functional technology of looking determines a certain kind of perspective of what is on the other side of the wall. 3D Viewmaster personal reels were created and chosen as advertisements of tourism and travel, as well as objects that provoke nostalgia about another time and curiosity about the map and places they represent.³

Transform Hers: Construction of Female Identity in the Age of Cyberfeminism and Community-Source Activism

The Transform Hers project is a commentary on children’s toys and the ways in which they prescribe gender roles to children in our consumer culture. The doll characters are used to symbolically represent socially accepted and culturally agreed upon female stereotypes within the context of the three waves of feminism. The dolls and their accessories are done in both small 81/2 x 11 (7 toy dolls and packaging) and large scale (1 large store display), and incorporate marketing materials such as packaging, instructions and a collector’s poster. The dolls are constructed using a combination of digitally drawn and appropriated images assembled 3-dimensionally in a style reminiscent of 50’s advertising, popular culture and and Second Wave “rediscovery” of crafts, in particular Miriam Schapiro’s femmage. Other influences in the project were Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto Manifesto, Red Groom’s street scenes and Andy Warhol’s manufactured art.⁴

Group Show. (2024, Apr 27). I AM. Mixed Media Sculpture Exhibited at the Tri-County S.P.E.A.K.S. Sexual Assault Center Art Fete Event. Benefit to support survivors for Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) at The Striped Pig Distillery in North Charleston, SC. See additional artwork related to the installation in Drawings & Objects. ↩︎
Group Show. (2009, February). Fictive Kin. Exhibited at the Woodhall Gallery, Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, VT. See additional artwork related to the installation in Photography, Digital, and Drawings, Sketches, & Paper. ↩︎
Group Show. (2008, August). Process[ing]: Time, Place, Collection and Reflection. Exhibited at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, VT. See additional artwork related to the installation in Photography and Digital. ↩︎
van Arnhem, J. P. (2010, March 27). Transform Hers: Construction of Female Identity in the Age of Cyberfeminism and Community-source Activism. Paper presented for the SEWSA 2010 Cultural Productions, Gender, and Activism conference held in Columbia, SC on March 25-27, 2010; Girls Rock Charleston volunteer. (2014, July). Feminism 101: Construction of the Female Identity. Workshop presented at Girls Rock Camp held in Charleston, SC. See additional artwork related to the installation in Photography and Digital. ↩︎