Hi, I’m Veronica (she/they), an artist and space holder, shapeshifting between mediums, obsessed with the creative act itself. Whether stringing words like beads or dancing in poetry, it’s all remembering and animating our belonging to each other and the living world.

Raised in Oak Park, Illinois, and profoundly shaped by years in rural Iowa and Detroit, my work is rooted in the Midwest and dedicated to people and land who’ve been sacrificed for profit.

My family’s silences led me to study storytelling at Grinnell College. From a young age I wondered: Who are we? And what are our stories? This path has shown me that the majority of people in this country share that our ancestors’ labor was exploited to exploit this land.

Now, we all deeply feel the consequences — as ecological crisis, loss of community, and declining health. Technology has shifted the locus of exploitation to the mind now too, as we fight for our attention.

“We must reclaim the word 'labor.' It means to give birth, which is creative, so reclaiming our labor is reclaiming our creativity — entering an embodied relationship with the earth.”

- Dr. Vandana Shiva

Creativity is an act of restoration for the lands and people who birthed us. Imagine humans like plants, culture like soil, and creativity a miraculous metabolizing process bringing balance to both. Our stories and pain are the threads from which solidarity will be sowed. After all, the soil will decide if we continue.