Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, 4k video with sound, 2021, RT: 20:40 

Field Companion was co-commissioned in 2021 by Rowan University Art Gallery and Locust Projects, Miami 

Set in a microcosmic forest, Field Companion is based loosely on the pine barrens that dot Southern New Jersey near the home of Hironaka & Suib. The film considers forest ecosystems in terms of symbiotic and collaborative relationships that sustain coexistence and community. In Field Companion, the pine barrens forest is condensed and transplanted to a terrarium in the artists’ studio. The terrarium’s diverse native plants and living dwellers are accompanied by digitally rendered part-animal, part-human creatures. Through these dwellers’ conversations and interactions, they look forward, investigating progressive methods of sustainability for now and into the future. 

Artists today continue to explore biodiversity and ecology. In Field Companion, Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib use film and digital tools to represent the natural world, rather than pencil, watercolor, and paper. Yet, many of the questions they ask are ones that already emerged in the work of Bartram, Peale, and Audubon— how can art capture nature’s complexity? How are humans tied to the rest of the natural world? What do we learn when we look at the world from a non-human perspective? 

Courtesy the artists and Locks Gallery, Philadelphia.