Satur, 2024 (in-progress)

Satur is a new, in-progress series of photogravure etchings revolving around settler colonization in the State of Oregon. In Spring of 2020, I was back in my home area of Malheur County, exploring Kenney Pass outside of Vale, Oregon. This site is the first main passage emigrants made on the Oregon Trail within the Oregon Territory — ground-zero for the impacts of settler colonization on this region and state. The site is now laden with didactic plinths which “guide” viewers through a settler-centered narrative while they look for the still-present wagon wheel ruts in the land; describing the toiling journey of the emigrants and reinforcing the narratives that Indigenous peoples were never present and that this land was for the taking. These plinths had been eroded by the weather and elements of the land, turning the images and text printed on plastic into numerous small shards, of which I collected. I began tracing these shards to create new imagery from the originals.

Thank you to Mullowney Printing Company for their masterful assistance in fabricating the photogravure plates for this series. This project has been supported by the Regional Arts & Culture Council through their Arts3C Grant Program, my gratitude to this organization for making this in-progress series possible.

Please stay tuned for progress on these print editions and future showings of the works.