Nymphaea: Lovers’ Letter to Water Lilies

Maggie-Rose Condit-Summerson; John Summerson

Maggie-Rose Condit-Summerson The Pennsylvania State University
John Summerson MA, The Royal College of Art

Abstract

Our inspiration, theorizing, and living process of co-creating Nymphaea, a time-based, collaborative work created using stop-motion animation and live projection on the body is the focus of our inquiry presented in this essay. Our multimedia creation is inspired by Prudence Gibson and Monica Gagliano’s 2017 essay, The Feminist Plant: Changing Relations with the Water Lily. We explore queer ecologies posited by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson (2010) with Donna Haraway’s (2016) “tentacular thinking.” Engaging with feminist/queer theory through embodied and experimental approaches to making, Nymphaea is our tentacular co-inquiry, a contemplation on water lilies as a queer companion species and as a more-than-human model of feminist collectivity, relationality, and care. Through Audre Lorde’s (1978/2007) Uses of the Erotic, we reflect on the ways our processes of co-creating Nymphaea and our companionship as artistic collaborators, educators, and life partners, are entangled.

Author Biographies

Maggie-Rose Condit-Summerson, The Pennsylvania State University

Maggie-Rose Condit-Summerson (she/they) is a Ph.D. candidate in Art Education and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Her dissertation arts-based research investigates the connections between reproductive justice and digital cultures/technologies, engaging glitch feminism as a critical lens and pedagogy. Maggie-Rose earned her MFA in Visual Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Combining performance and video, Maggie-Rose’s recent works incorporate materials like cosmetics, confectionery ingredients, and stock images. Her interdisciplinary art practice explores the sticky relationships between femininity, the neoliberal marketplace, and digital/visual culture. Maggie-Rose can be reached at maggiecondit@gmail.com.

John Summerson, MA, The Royal College of Art

John Summerson (he/him) is an award-winning animation director and storyteller. He holds a Master’s Degree in Documentary Animation from the Royal College of Art in London, UK, and earned his BFA in Animated Arts from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. He specializes in creative nonfiction animation. He particularly enjoys the blurred boundaries between animation, essays, interviews, bread dough, fake holidays and real (bad) musical performances of the aforementioned fake holidays. His accolades include the Grand Prize at the LG Art of the Pixel competition, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Educator’s Forum Scholarship, and the Princess Grace Undergraduate Film Scholarship. His films have been exhibited internationally, most recently in Budapest, Madrid, Berlin, and London, and in Times Square in New York City. He can be reached at johnedwardsummerson@gmail.com.