CYCLES OF
DELINEATION II
Cycles of Delineation II, 2026
Canvas, screen-print, 66 ft. in length
Related exhibition:
Beyond the Plot: Resistance Against the Delineation of Land and Practice in Agriculture, 2026, Experimental Gallery, Cornell University.
Canvas, screen-print, 66 ft. in length
Related exhibition:
Beyond the Plot: Resistance Against the Delineation of Land and Practice in Agriculture, 2026, Experimental Gallery, Cornell University.
Cycles of Delineation is a dual sculpture reinterpreting the 66 ft. long Gunter’s chain, one of the first standardized land-measuring tools used by early English surveyors and the primary instrument to segment the land that is now referred to as the United States of America into acres.
Cycles of Delineation I is made in clay, the constitutive and life-giving element of the land that the original instrument was designed to divide. While still technically capable of measuring and dividing space, the chain remains brittle: a structure simultaneously hard and fragile.
Cycles of Delineation II is a reinterpretation of the modern surveying tape. While retaining the chain’s original length of 66 feet, this piece is made in canvas onto which excerpts of both historical and contemporary land acts and agricultural policy were screen-printed.
Together, both pieces serve as tools to spatialize history and point to how old colonial power structures and narratives, based on violent, racial, and oppressive ideologies, are sustained and reinscribed in cyclical ways through contemporary surveying tools and laws.
Cycles of Delineation I is made in clay, the constitutive and life-giving element of the land that the original instrument was designed to divide. While still technically capable of measuring and dividing space, the chain remains brittle: a structure simultaneously hard and fragile.
Cycles of Delineation II is a reinterpretation of the modern surveying tape. While retaining the chain’s original length of 66 feet, this piece is made in canvas onto which excerpts of both historical and contemporary land acts and agricultural policy were screen-printed.
Together, both pieces serve as tools to spatialize history and point to how old colonial power structures and narratives, based on violent, racial, and oppressive ideologies, are sustained and reinscribed in cyclical ways through contemporary surveying tools and laws.
Workshop:
On the Delineation of Land and Practice
May 2, 2026
Birding Man festival of agroecology.
Ramble On Farm, Trumansburg, New York
May 14, 2026
Agriculture Quad, Cornell University
On the Delineation of Land and Practice
May 2, 2026
Birding Man festival of agroecology.
Ramble On Farm, Trumansburg, New York
May 14, 2026
Agriculture Quad, Cornell University
On the Delineation of Land and Thought (2026) is a workshop I facilitated multiple times with students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University.
The aim was to employ the piece Cycles of Delineation II as a catalyst for dialogue, prompting reflection on the power structures and value systems underlying American agriculture.
The initial workshop was held on the Agriculture Quad, the College’s central outdoor space. To frame the exercise, I read a passage describing the multiple ways in which land is divided and segmented through the historical use of the Gunter’s chain.
Participants were invited to read the imprinted text aloud while simultaneously enacting the physical mapping of an acre—measuring ten chain lengths in longitude and one in latitude. One act at a time, we vocalized the ideologies embedded within the often obscured language of agricultural policy.
The conversations that took place differed in each iteration, reflecting the spaces they occurred in. They include topics like generational wealth, agricultural education, andnew tools for land evaluation.
The aim was to employ the piece Cycles of Delineation II as a catalyst for dialogue, prompting reflection on the power structures and value systems underlying American agriculture.
The initial workshop was held on the Agriculture Quad, the College’s central outdoor space. To frame the exercise, I read a passage describing the multiple ways in which land is divided and segmented through the historical use of the Gunter’s chain.
Participants were invited to read the imprinted text aloud while simultaneously enacting the physical mapping of an acre—measuring ten chain lengths in longitude and one in latitude. One act at a time, we vocalized the ideologies embedded within the often obscured language of agricultural policy.
The conversations that took place differed in each iteration, reflecting the spaces they occurred in. They include topics like generational wealth, agricultural education, andnew tools for land evaluation.