I'm Laura.

Experience

As a multidisciplinary artist, I have the desire to explore new modes of communication and storytelling through a practice that is dynamic and dependent on location and purpose and encompasses photography, performance, video, installation, writing, mixed media, and community engagement.

Artist projects, I imagine, are constantly altered and molded by my abroad experiences and the relationships formed through them. My adventurous and dauntless nature has led me to international locations, including residencies and research opportunities in Ilulissat, Greenland; Stövarfjördur, Iceland; Šolta Island, Croatia; Birzeit, Palestine; and Istanbul, Turkey.

In my latest work, I focus on connecting my energetic healing practice, Indigenous perspectives, and multi-disciplined art practice to explore new methods of engagement with people, the land, the ancestors, past lives, and the natural world. To see the whole person (physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual) as one with the land and in relationship with others (such as the family, communities, and nations) and to ourselves. These methods can include channeling through dreamwork, meditation, working with the elementals (otherworldly beings), and active listening.

My ongoing project “Learning to Fly", started in 2016 during an Icelandic residency at the Fish Factory Creative Centre, is centered around notions of belonging and acceptance as they relate to tribal identity and the process of governmental recognition or oppression of minority groups. Initially focused on my mother’s identity as a Lumbee Tribeswoman with no legal acknowledgment, the project has evolved into a narrative-building and research-based work concentrated on discovering ancestral history, connecting healing/ meditative practices based on ancient wisdom, channeling, and yet-to-be-determined ways of making oneself receptive to the journey of introspection.

New work is rooted in my recovery from a traumatic brain injury suffered in the summer of 2021 while attending an artist residency in Berlin. The recovery has been long and tedious, mending fractures in the head and face, having life-saving brain surgery, and suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to neglect and negligence in Berlin hospitals.

What transpired in the months after, has fundamentally changed my life and my artistic practice, irrevocably altering the way I understand myself and navigate the world. This experience has provided new meaning and perspective to my art practice and sparked new endeavors and creativity.