Caryn Aasness is an MFA candidate in Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice program and has a BFA in Fiber From California State University Long Beach.
They want to invite you into their brain. In it we explore mental illness, and the folk art of coping mechanisms. We investigate queerness and how it forms and severs multiple selves. We look to language and learn how to cheat at it. You are welcome to leave the brain at any time.
Early on, Caryn learned to love junk and continues to collect discarded objects to inspire and inform their work. They have watched as cultural attitudes toward compulsive collecting have shifted as the word packrat made way for the word hoarder. As light begins to be shed on these phenomena and collectors are splintered off from hoarders and new denominations form, Caryn attempts to carve out a space to make mentally healthy compulsive work about junk.
Residency: June 2021 - August 2021