Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts, “Autolysis”

View the installation through activities with the Artists (free admission to all events):
Guided walking experience with artists, Saturday, June 4, 1-3pm
Open Studio Drop-in Hours: Tuesday June 6 and Friday June 10, 5:30-7:30pm
Finissage with Artist Talk and Dirty Karaoke: Wednesday, June 15, 6-9:30pm

“Autolysis” (self-splitting), by artists Heather Kapplow and Walker Tufts, is named after the first stage of decomposition when a body is buried, and from the Greek roots of that word. Autolysis is a poetic and visceral exploration of issues around climate change, plant species adaptation/extinction, and personal mortality through a focus on/engagement with soil/dirt.

Dirt/earth is the very base of our daily existence and also where we return to when we cease to exist. It nurtures us, and then we disappear into it. In the Covid-era, when we have become profoundly oriented towards the digital, and where cleanliness has felt like a life or death imperative, “Autolysis” offers an immersive, tactile and olfactory experience of re-connection with the earth and to dirt.

Autolysis also opens conversations about personal relationships with the earth in a way that emphasizes the actual material of the earth rather than earth with a capital “E”, and creates space for gentle contemplation of end of life/end of species issues.

Come immerse yourself in stories and scents unearthed from Boston’s past and present soil and imagine our future flora with conceptual artist Heather Kapplow and artist and game designer Walker Tufts!

Heather Kapplow (no 3rd person pronouns preferred) is a self-trained conceptual artist. Kapplow creates participatory experiences that elicit unexpected intimacies using objects, alternative interpretations of existing environments, installation, performance, writing, audio and video. Kapplow’s work has received American and European government funding; support from numerous private foundations; and commissions from galleries, film and performance festivals including the MIT List Visual Arts Center, ANTI-Festival, and ISEA International.

An avid collaborator, Kapplow has co-created ensemble projects at the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (DK), Guggenheim Museum (US), Institute of Contemporary Art (US), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (US), Museo Arte Moderno (MX), Museum of Fine Arts Boston (US), and the Queens Museum (US), and performed within live artworks by La Pocha Nostra, Paul Ramirez Jonas, and On Kawara. Kapplow is also an active member of two international art communities that produce work collectively: Flux Factory and Mobius Artists Group, and an affiliate artist at metaLAB at Harvard University.

Walker Tufts is an artist and game designer. Walker’s work explores our relationship to others (human and more-than-human) through games, exhibitions, dinner parties, and performances.  With various collaborators, Walker makes games that playfully place player’s bodies in physical relationship with global systems, dirt, bodies, and microbiomes. His work has been shown internationally including: MassMoCA, Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, and Flux Factory. His projects have received funding from the Danish Arts Council, the Arts Council of Wales and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Walker has created commissioned public works and participated in residencies from Saint Petersburg, RU to Portland, OR. He is currently collaborating with bacteria to grow experimental concrete in the Emerging Practices MFA at University at Buffalo.