Sara InAcio
Unruly and Unresolved: a shared, precarious survival
I'm just a little rat trying to survive,
To exist and not be perceived.
Building a home,
In a place unnatural to me.
Destroyed and rebuilt again,
I've learned to live in the toxic world you've created.
Jose Esteban Muñoz describes Queerness as “not simply a being but a doing for and toward the future.” As a rejection of a here and now, it insists on the potential for another world. Unruly and Unresolved forms a home in its becoming and unbecoming. Through the rats’ experience, it reflects human tendencies to intervene and control ecosystems; a tension present in moments of difference within our own species. As my existence clashes with the world around me, I relate to rats scurrying away; being and not belonging. Unruly and Unresolved is about growth and persistence space not made for one’s survival and the complexities of existing and imagining alongside the non-human.
Unruly and Unresolved, installation view
a house-like structure roughly under construction, prints of plants and roadkill line the wall, with a glow coming through the windows. The roof is made out of old wood and paper.
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Unruly and Unresolved: A Precarious, Shared Survival. Wood, handmade paper (kozo, abaca, food scraps and leaf litter), nesting materials (natural materials and trash found on the street), paper casts, silkscreen and collagraph prints of roadkill remains, bark and debris. (photographed by Sarah Meftah)
Unruly and Unresolved, inside installation view
The prints made directly from the remains of animals found on the road in my current neighborhood, not the obvious roadkill with guts spilling, but the subtle ones that go unnoticed. Flattened and fading into the asphalt, they ultimately become part of the road.
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Inside a structure with exposed framing, two windows and print-lined walls, with nest-like forms going into the walls, and a projection of a pile of a pile of wood in a garden (photographed by Sarah Meftah)
Unruly and Unresolved, detail view
The slow and abrupt demolition of a house nearby resembles the rat burrows that were dug up in the garden: the destruction of a home.
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Close up of prints of plants, roadkill remains, and a house in process of being demolished on top of abstracted forms. Exposed wall framing, nest coming through and small paper rat on a ledge. (photographed by Sarah Meftah)
Unruly and Unresolved, detail view
The rat pups encountered in the aftermath scatter at a loss and slow confusion, with their future uncertain as they try to survive in this human-dominated space
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A little baby rat made of textued paper, in a nest that goes through the wall structure. The nast is made of burlap, hardware cloth, paper, hay and plastic scraps.
Unruly and Unresolved, detail view
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a corner inside the stucture, with prints of plants various roadkill, some rats, a snake, a toad and bird. Some are unrecognizable. a light projection of a house in one of the walls.
November 27, 2022, 1:05am
A close view of the rat in the dark as she passes through the narrow path that is lined with weeds. Her eyes glow with the night light. The paper is translucent and backlit with shadows of twigs and plants.
This is a path well travelled, by both, rats and mice. Between the fence and the asparagus plants, it leads from the shed to the street.
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November 27, 2022, 1:05am, Mezzotint print and beeswax, 4x4in
May 8, 2023, 11:07pm
In the springtime, mama rat is in and out of the nest, foraging and taking care of her home.
The rat nears the center with flowering plants carefully mirroring the arch of her back. Framed with a backlight, the highlights glow in contrast to the velvety darks of the mezzotint print.
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Mezzotint print and beeswax, 4x4in
Unruly and Unresolved: a shared, precarious survival, detail
the video footage in the work brings glimpses into the everyday lives of urban animals in the local community garden; interupted by the slow and abrupt demolition of a house nearby.
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(video recording by Sarah Meftah)
