Through projects that span sculpture, archives, and cartographic impulses, I respond to the becomings and undoings of space. Maps present the illusion of a static world: a conception of space as mathematical. Instead, my work begins with a social conception of space, where shifting territorial boundaries form strata between people. I seek moments where boundaries become permeable – a place where architecture dissolves into raw matter or the surveyor’s tools encode a digital artifact. By finding residues where systems are revealed, I question the processes of demarcation and displacement which inscribe sites of contention on the land.
My practice is responsive at its core. Rather than invent new images, I recontextualize things already in circulation or develop site-specific, participatory projects. Sometimes I will live with an object for a decade before I can meet it on its own terms. This responsiveness acknowledges social and material agency outside of myself and ultimately makes my practice a symbiotic one. Other people and other things offer many insights about living in fractured geographies. Their faint echoes reverberate through every space, carrying layered histories to anyone willing to listen. I work in the amplification of echoes.
My practice is responsive at its core. Rather than invent new images, I recontextualize things already in circulation or develop site-specific, participatory projects. Sometimes I will live with an object for a decade before I can meet it on its own terms. This responsiveness acknowledges social and material agency outside of myself and ultimately makes my practice a symbiotic one. Other people and other things offer many insights about living in fractured geographies. Their faint echoes reverberate through every space, carrying layered histories to anyone willing to listen. I work in the amplification of echoes.
Bio
Michael Webster focuses on the social organization of space through site-specific projects, sculpture, and installation. His work is context-driven and materially attuned, investigating the effects of power on social geography with a focus on long-term participatory projects rooted in the southern United States. He has participated in residencies at ChaNorth, Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Elsewhere Living Museum, and Penland School of Craft. He was the runner-up for the 2023 SouthArts Southern Prize and the recipient of the South Carolina State Fellowship.
Michael has participated in exhibitions at 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Locust Projects, the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum, 701 Center for Contemporary Art, and the Liv Lab Watershed Project Space at Western Carolina University. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from East Carolina University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, he is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid GVL and an associate professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Michael has participated in exhibitions at 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Locust Projects, the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum, 701 Center for Contemporary Art, and the Liv Lab Watershed Project Space at Western Carolina University. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from East Carolina University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently, he is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid GVL and an associate professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.