Snail Drawings

In collaborating with snails to make a drawing, I follow a set of rules: I only move the snails when they have traveled off of the paper, I never attempt to redirect them for aesthetic reasons, I am a mere observer while they do their part.

I endeavor to accurately record their journeys and the crossing of their paths; the line carries an internal logic. As I cut and manipulate the paper, the actions of my hand erase the very history I am attempting to preserve. Despite taking care to preserve their delicately placed trails they slowly disappear, and it becomes harder to see the history that remains and accurately remember its contours.

The work becomes a meditation on what is lost and what is in the process of being lost, through the gesture of the hand, through the presence of humans. It is a prayer about the erasure of the delicacy of nature, but also folly: through the process of trying to record what’s there, the traces are lost. One cannot interact with nature without impacting it.