‘tending to change’ is a site-specific sculptural installation created for Wave Hill’s Sunroom Project Space, a public garden and cultural center. This modular installation brings together materials including metal, wood, ceramics, stained glass, waxed thread, plant matter like dried medicial herbs and tinctures, and more to explore nature-based imagery and healing practices. I draw from structures found in fluid systems—from microscopic vascular networks to expansive geologic formations—and weave them together with references to ancient Etruscan healing rituals and traditional herbalism.

At the center of the space, a suspended wood tapestry mimics the outline of reproducing cells. Made from clusters of semi-circular wood pieces, it forms a lace-like structure that casts intricate shadows across the floor. Behind the tapestry, I’ve installed an iPad displaying my Are.na, a digital platform I use to connect ideas and share research. This channel includes microscopy images, crowdsourced visuals, memes, historical Etruscan votives, and references from queer ecologists and crip theorists that inform the work.

Stained-glass stands support ceramic votive forms inspired by Etruscan ritual objects. Rather than depicting literal body parts, these undulating forms act as visual offerings to the cellular organelles that orchestrate microscopic healing pathways. As someone trained as a microbiologist, particularly in the study of immunological signaling, these forms are my own visioning of unseen internal bodily processes—my attempt to give shape to the complexity and beauty of the systems that operate beneath the surface of the skin. The stands themselves form a root-like system that weaves through the gallery, mimicking vascular and symbiotic networks found in nature. Plant matter, tinctures, and ceramics fill the negative space within each truncated end of the structure.

An altar table anchors another section of the installation, holding ceramic window-like forms, dried medicinal plants, tinctures, and microscope images of plant vascular systems. These altars are a way for me to elevate inherited knowledge around plant medicine and healing. The installation includes six of these window altar forms, corresponding to the six physical windows in the gallery. This work draws on herbalism from my heritage, and attempts to create linkages to the ubiquity of many of these botanical remedies as a way to highlight nature's healing. These medicinal herbs demonstrate the often disregarded healing ability of the natural world.

Through the layering of materials, references, and sensory elements, tending to change reflects on the interdependence of bodies and environments, and how rituals of care—both ancient and contemporary—can reconnect us to systems of support embedded in the natural world.