Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts at Goethe-Institut Boston’s Studio 170 Residency Program for June 2022

Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts present Autolysis, a poetic and visceral exploration of issues around climate change, plant species adaptation/extinction, and personal mortality through a focus on/engagement with soil/dirt.

Dirt/earth is the very base of our daily existence and also where we return to when we cease to exist. It nurtures us, and then we disappear into it.

In the Covid-era, when we have become profoundly oriented towards the digital, and where cleanliness has felt like a life or death imperative, Autolysis offers an immersive, tactile and olfactory experience of re-connection with the earth and to dirt.

Autolysis also opens conversations about personal relationships with the earth in a way that emphasizes the actual material of the earth rather than earth with a capital “E”, and creates space for gentle contemplation of end of life/end of species issues.

See URL below for details of free public events on June 4, June 7, June 8, June 10, and a closing Karaoke party on June 15th.

Detail from Dirt Bath, 2021, Heather Kapplow & Walker Tufts.