Elm Fork Excavation
Elm Fork Excavation, 2023
Live performance, archeological survey equipment, and artifacts from the Johnson and Jones Farmstead in what is now Lake Ray Roberts State Park.
Duration: 30 minutes
Presented with Installation work, The Institute of Paleoanthrozoological Archeology
As viewers approach the institute, they notice an abandoned desk that seems to belong to a bygone era. The institute's sole employee, Dr. Sarah Posey, an archaeologist, has unknowingly been lost underground since 1985, just one year before her groundbreaking work on the Johnson and Jones Farmstead was set to begin.
In this performance, the archaeologist returns to her post and resume the excavation, only to discover that the objects in the ground have modernized as the soil's health deteriorated.
Viewers, who possess more knowledge of the current state of their local environments, become the bearers of knowledge. Skewing the culturally ingrained power dynamics found in museums and historical narratives. Viewers are encouraged to reflect on their own relationship with knowledge, questioning how humans interact with the environment and reimagining the stagnant ways we view it.
