As an artist/researcher/teacher who visited the people of the Secoya community in Ecuador's Amazonian region, and witnessed the ravages of the embolism of oil contamination, my work provides a brief glimpse into someone else’s world that I know is intertwined with my world. Like the limited scope of looking through the viewfinder of a camera, or peering through a windowpane that also becomes a mirror, the temporal limits of memory, language and imagination prevent the full transport of the strength, struggles, beauty, and resilience of Secoya life. Yet, travel into the lives of others makes the overlap of human moments and geographical distance transparent. Through collage I consider the arterial intersection of (post)industrialized ways of life with traditional, indigenous ways of life. The interlacing of my oil consumption with Secoyan survival injects urgency into the pulse of common experiences.
