Cyrah Dardas is a Queer, eco-feminist artist and care worker living in Detroit /Waawiyaatanong, Anishinaabe territory. Dardas uses their art practice as a tool in remembering the lost relationships between humans and non-human beings as a result of the extractive nature of capitalism by regulating and healing our collective body to restore interdependency.
Their work is informed by experiences in childcare, gardening, as a member of an artist cooperative, Portal For and practice of using natural fibers, earth pigments, and botanical inks. They are a recipient of the Emerging Artist Fellowship, supported by the Knight Foundation.
“I make work with earth and for nature; wood, paper, metals, creating botanical inks, dyes and watercolors made from foraged plants, charred willow bark, ochres, ash and stone. I consider this process as an interspecies communion that deeply informs the form and function the work takes. Colors are derived from plants, and the natural textures and materials that nature creates reflect the landscape and identity of the land I exist on.
“I think about my practice as a container for collective remembering that strives to honor and re-centralize the wisdom and memory alive in my blood and to uncover or recover forgotten knowledge. This body of work examines tapestry-making as a healing technology that re-establishes forgotten networks of relationship between humans and non-human life.”
