Keira Estabrooks (she/they)
Student
Selfhood Entwined
Charcoal pencil
Artist Statement
As a wildlife biology major and art minor, I seek to further explore my core belief that powerful visuals stemming from artistic expression coupled with intimate involvement in land restoration, wildlife care, and place-based research, have the ability to stimulate our emotions as well as our learning ability, strengthening the impact of conservational education. It is incredibly important that we embrace multiple ways of knowing, whether it be the merging of academia and critical thinking with artistry, empathy, creativity, language, emotion, or experimentation, in order to fully achieve innovative thought in the environmental field. It is also important to understand the delicate and intimate connections that humans hold with the natural world, as nature is less a separate concept that we must gaze upon to appreciate or utilize, but more so lives within each of us as a species. Much of our selfhood is composed of this web of intertwining ecosystems that make up the air we breathe, the food we eat, the wildlife we interact with, the storms we brave, and the fungi that may return our nutrients to the cycles of Earth after our passing.
This illustration depicts not only the natural systems and interactions that make up Vermont, but also my own personal connection to the land that has developed over my first year at UVM. As a demisexual lesbian, Rubenstein student, and artist, I have found relatability, comfort, connection and emotional release through interactions with nature. This spans from the appreciativeness of my own mortality as I climb towering rocky cliffs, to nature’s unbiased and judgement-free spaces where I can simply exist without condition or label, to the vibrant expressions of gender and sexuality with wildlife, reminding me I am not alone.