In 2014 I was the recipient of the New York Explorer's Club Artist-in-Exploration Award (underwritten by Rolex USA), a $ 25,000 grant given to an artist to realize a project in the field. The work I embarked upon with the assistance of the award was to document the ongoing restoration of Gorongosa National Park in Central Mozambique. 

Gorongosa National Park was once one of the richest wildlife refuges in the world, it was decimated and virtually lay in ruins by the end of the civil war that raged following independence from Portugal during the late 1970’s until 1992. In 2004 the Carr Foundation as part of their humanitarian aid projects set about establishing a foundation to ensure and aid the recovery and restoration of the park and surrounding war torn communities. They have been working with scientists such as E. O Wilson who in 2014 established a Research Laboratory there as well as the Mozambican government and other private foundations to realize this endeavor. 

 My project was to produce a suite of works based on the ideas of the Parks mission to restore, protect, study and sustain this fragile biodiversity. I was particularly interested in examining how conflict impacts ecosystems. In 2015 I spent two weeks working in the park photographing and sketching both specimens in the lab, and animals/landscapes out in the field. I was able to meet with the scientists working in the park and was taken out to visit various sites of interest including two of the resident bat colonies. The works that resulted from these travels and research include three distinct bodies, “Bhassa la ntsanga- Fieldwork”, “Ndzindiquira- Specimens”, and “Cu bwerera-The Return”. Two limited edition portfolios were also produced as part of this work.  

In my recent drawing practice I have been employing a technique of puncturing a drawing from behind leaving a small raised hole, suggestive of a scar, an insect trail or braille like mark. These punctured motifs also allude to the idea of something inhabiting or invading the paper surface suggesting an element of violence or damage.  For the Gorongosa Project I was looking at both the re wilding of the park and the delicate balance of the geographic zones of the park. The surrounding crops in the buffer zones and the trade routes of wildlife trafficking as further elements to incorporate using this technique in the more rendered drawings. Within these works I have also incorporated other visual elements and materials such as linen and silk book binding thread, stitching, earth pigments and entomology pins.