Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

Hughen/Starkweather is the collaboration of artists Jennifer Starkweather and Amanda Hughen, who have worked as a team since 2006. Their collaboration was sparked when they had studios across the hall from each other at Headlands. For the past several years their practice has centered on the impacts of climate disruption on places where land meets water, including rivers, rain, ice, aquifers, oceans, floods, and drought. They are specifically interested in engineered infrastructures interwoven with natural ecosystems in the landscape, and how these increasingly fragile systems might fail or succeed together.

Their research-intensive process includes interviewing scientists and community members; visiting infrastructures and archives; reading articles, books, and oral histories; and looking at data trajectories and possible futures. The artists make site visits throughout California and the American West to collect water from rivers and bays, ash from wildfires, sand from deserts and beaches, as well as natural salts, borax, and dirt, and use these materials directly in the artworks. The resulting paintings, sculptures, and videos evoke a sense of a place in transition, layering past, present, and future through forms referencing topographies, landforms, waterways, and infrastructures. By allowing the artworks to resonate with the collected data and materials, Hughen/Starkweather hope to prompt curiosity, uncertainty, and new perspectives in the viewer. The work reflects the ambiguities and complexities of our time, while offering glimpses of hope and beauty amidst destruction.