Guided by her intuition, Maggie Groat aligns her practice with the cycles of the moon and the seasons. She uses various assemblage methods and salvage practices to create research projects, collages, installations, artist books, and performances that connect her with more-than-human entities. Drawing inspiration from her connection with the land, with her ancestors, and with the current climate crisis, she creates physical and conceptual spaces turned toward possible futures that challenge colonial systems of classification and modes of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a cosmic symbol of cyclical transformation, the moon suggests alternative ways of apprehending the world. Groat dedicates a series of poetic gestures to the moon, eliciting a fascination with that celestial body and its influence on earthly life. In an act of metaphorical reparations, she bought and restored a plot of lunar land, a transaction that provided an indirect way of addressing territorial appropriation on Earth. With Moon Reflectors or a Proposal for Returning Moonlight Back to the Moon<\/em>, she devotes a speculative installation to the moon, made up of second-hand mirrors, aluminum balls, and metallic boxes devised to restore a part of the sunlight it reflects back to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a holistic spirit characterized by notions of offering and caring, Groat is developing a body of work created in, with, and for her garden. She transposes a series of collages onto gardening clothes, including the works worm mood > doom mrow<\/em>, which presents the earthworm as symbol of fertility, and flowers also gardens, gardens also seeds<\/em>, conveying the vision of an impossible garden in full bloom. Worn during a ritual performance, the floral accumulation envelops the body and melds with the environment, like a camouflage pattern meant not to conceal the one wearing it but to bring that person into communion with their surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pursuing a reflection on the energetic potential of art objects, Groat considers that they need to be activated by certain ritual gestures and through their capacity for retaining energy. The works must thus eventually return home to be recharged, exposed to moonlight, or used in the garden in order to enact their propositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated from the French by Ron D. Ross<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n