Art and nature are humanity’s common language, and my primary instrument as an interdisciplinary artist.  I use this common language to tell stories, whether through narrative, movement, installation, poetry... the story will be what drives change and fosters new connections between all living entities on our planet. Within my current practice, I confront issues such as climate change, the confluence of the Anthropocene urge to conquer the environment and eco-feminism, food justice, and the intersection of access to wild space and mental health, finding the correlation of each to the other impossible to ignore.

In confronting these issues over the last decades in both South Florida and New York City, my chosen media has been fluid and responsive to the environmental conditions I work in. My diverse materials include garbage scavenged from train yards, footage from nature documentaries, poetry, weaving, works on hand-made paper and Mylar, even cooking and food, as well as more traditional media for two- and three-dimensional work. I select my medium based on how the public can be best engaged in a site-specific piece: whether through installation, or performance, or workshops.

Tackling the environmental impacts of our society necessitates an acknowledgement that we are truly interdependent, participating in the story of our natural and built environments together, as a community and as a society. I frequently collaborate with organizations, individual scientists, and activists: NYC Audubon, Audubon Everglades, Rohi's Readery, EcoAmerica, the American Littoral Society, the Wild Bird Fund, firefly expert Dr. Sara Lewis, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson, and more. Most recently, I have offered presentations on art-based approaches to environmental justice and climate change as an ecoAmerica Climate for Health ambassador. I also conduct monthly “Wildness is Necessary” workshops at Rohi’s Readery, a social justice-driven children’s bookstore. Much of this work is offered on a volunteer basis at established institutional spaces,  and the majority is entirely grassroots,
self-funded, and engages a broad and diverse public of all ages and backgrounds.

In choosing to create moments that are site specific, re-purposing mundane scavenged objects, using urgent movement and instinctive brushstrokes, I seek to create a tether from myself to others, a dialogue about our place, about what immobilizes us, tangles us up, throws us forward, breaks us down; a recognition that we are both less and more important that we imagine, and that we're all writing this story together.

Website: https://www.autumnkioti.com/