I became interested in how social insects such as ants and bees construct and maintain their colony. Within my personal explorations in performance art and sculpture, I have transformed myself into a queen ant.  I thought I could “rule” a colony but I was wrong. A Queen needs a lot of help! Nursing ants, foragers, cleaners, and lazy ants, all help her to produce, and keep the colony surviving. The book, “Emergence” by Steven Johnson, introduced me to the idea of the process of non-hierarchical self-organization.  It invigorated my investigations in temporary community building and gives me hope – if those little creatures can think/act locally and eventually effect globally, perhaps humans can do that too!? 

In 2014, when I was one of the Target Margin Theater's Institute for Collaborative Theater Making Fellows, with the help of Director/Staff and my fellow artists, I launched the project PIPORNOT. I hosted a first series of workshops, where I invited people to engage in a visual (universal) way of communicating (mark-making, drawing, collaging, etc.) and create a temporary community for the purpose of emergency evacuation, using information on the world of social insects. 

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