ARTIST STATEMENT
In “Domestic Field Studies” objects of domestic labor and hunting tools are reimagined and assembled to explore how care, labor, and harm coexist in material culture. The work draws on early depictions of Mother Goose as a witch—one who rode a broom before she rode a goose—situating domestic tools within mythic histories of gendered labor, control, and flight. These objects move between tool, trophy, and household artifact, where practices of care are inseparable from technologies of capture.
Sonic elements embedded within the works play field recordings of Canada geese entangled with human laughter, unsettling the boundary between animate and inanimate. This tension invites viewers to confront ethical histories embedded in everyday objects, and consider how acts of making, gathering, and listening shape our relationships with the living world.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Using a site-sensitive approach, the work of Sandrine Schaefer offers opportunities to gather and proposes ways to share time not accessible elsewhere in life. Positioning the live encounter as primary, Sandrine’s interdisciplinary art practice is inherently social and collaborative. Their work most often presents as performance art installations that challenge conventional viewing tendencies by using repetition, long duration, and strategies that reward curious viewers with multisensory elements. Their most recent work celebrates interspecies entanglements by exploring everyday encounters between humans and nonhuman animals in shared environments.
Their work has been exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, performance art festivals, and non-art designated spaces. Sandrine has received awards from the ICA Foster Prize, the Boston Foundation, the Tanne Foundation, the Edes Award, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Vermont Studio Center, and Boston Center for the Arts. Working from the belief that it is an artist’s responsibility to uplift the work of others, Sandrine’s practice extends into curatorial projects, writing, and teaching. They have co-founded several artist-run initiatives and written about time-based art practices for numerous international publications. Sandrine is an Assistant Professor of Visual Art in 3D and Expanded Practices at Coastal Carolina University and serves on the Artist Advisory Council at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
© Sandrine Schaefer