Anne Birutė Harris

My interdisciplinary practice visualizes my relationship with the more-than-human world. Since I was a small child, I have always felt that there was something more in the woods than what I could see with my eyes. When I am present in the landscape, I experience something invisible and atmospheric. Painting, performance, photography, and video installation represent my felt experiences and a lifelong relationship with the woods. For the last seven years, I have been involved in a collaboration with Mount Greylock, the tallest mountain in present day Massachusetts. Wearing my paintings through performance, I blend into the landscape and become an extension of the environment. My practice involves spending time in the woods, wearing my unstretched paintings as camouflage to absorb the spirit of the mountain, to become the mountain, to express the mountain. And when I am camouflaged, I turn into something more than myself. As this mountain spirit, ghost, and animal-like creature, I repeatedly visit to experience seasonal changes, different lighting, and weather conditions. Today my artistic journey lies in a local forest in present day Worcester, Massachusetts where I collaborate with the animals, and with my porcupine friend. Visiting this porcupine among the dead hemlock trees, I participate with this porcupine’s journey on its return to the forest soil.