Video, 2009
Choreography by Lar Lubovitch
Performed by Mia Babalis
Joyce Theater, New York, NY, 1994

As a dancer, revisiting choreography often involves video recordings—pausing, rewinding, and replaying to recall steps, timing, and nuance. This process of remembering is slow and fragmented, much like piecing together a distant memory.

Reflecting on my performance of Lar Lubovitch’s Northstar at the Joyce Theater, I found myself once again navigating this process. I videotaped the monitor as I reviewed the choreography, then recorded that recording, repeating the process over and over. With each iteration, the image softened, becoming increasingly indistinct. What began as a clear memory dissolved into a vague shadow of movement. This process mirrors my own experience of looking back on my life as a dancer—seeing the motions but feeling them slip away from my body, reduced to a distant, intangible recollection.

The piece also captures the materiality of an era now fading: VHS tapes and tube television monitors, both rendered obsolete by digital technology. The imperfections and idiosyncrasies of these analog mediums—once unnoticed—now stand out as artifacts, bearing a unique, tactile quality. Similarly, the digital medium I used to capture this process has its own distinct signature, one that will, in time, become just as singular and irreplaceable as the technologies it has replaced.

This project begins with the evolving landscape of Los Angeles, particularly the demolition of early 20th-century single-family homes. The criteria for historical preservation are inherently subjective and exclusive. To qualify, a house must possess “unique artistic merit” or have been home to a “person of significance.” In researching, photographing, and filming homes that didn’t meet these standards, but were nonetheless valuable, I began to ask questions that would shape this work:

How does our personal history—shaped by past homes and landscapes—inform the meaning we create in the places we inhabit? Do houses accumulate the character of the lives lived within them? How do we determine the “value” of both a person and a property? And perhaps most intriguing: What kind of "space" do these houses now occupy, and what new space is created when we salvage and re-present their remnants?

The boarded-up house, like the installation made from its parts, holds a unique tension between physical presence and immaterial experience. The interplay of light, sound, and material suspends our usual understanding of time and space.

Cycle, 2015
4 channel video, fabric
25 x 20 x 4 feet
(Dimensions variable)
Ochi Gallery, Sun Valley, ID

This installation creates a space where viewers can simultaneously occupy, observe, and be observed. It places the viewer within the projection of the pool and swimmer, immersing them in the scene, while copper pipes embedded in the walls offer alternate vantage points. Through these pipes, viewers can peer into the scene, while a small monitor displays their presence within the installation.

The experience shifts between two perspectives: being inside the image and observing it from the outside, blurring the boundaries between subject and spectator.

Created for the opening of the St. John’s Hospital Video Art Wall in 2009, this video was designed to inspire hope and offer a sense of beauty and connection to patients, families, and friends during their time at the hospital.

Filmed in various locations across Santa Monica, the work follows the sun and sky, evoking the promise of a new day. By bringing the tranquility of the outdoors inside, the piece seeks to provide comfort and a moment of reflection amidst life’s challenges.

My interest in extinct birds and flowers began while researching missing persons online. As I investigated the last known locations of these individuals, I used Google Earth to zoom in as closely as possible to the places where they were last seen. In the process, I started noticing species of birds and flowers that had also been marked as "last seen." One day, I came across a YouTube video of the Laysan Flightless Rail, filmed in 1923. The grainy footage captured the last known sighting of this bird, and I found it incredibly moving.

As I continued exploring these extinct species, I discovered something surprising: not only had I found species that had disappeared, but I also uncovered stories of flowers and birds that had "reappeared," or been brought back from extinction. This led me to think about the concept of creation, resurrection, and the representation of life in art. For me, making art has always been an attempt to preserve something—whether by keeping it alive or reviving it.

The more I explored the idea of extinction, the more I found it reflected in the complexity of the term itself. The dictionary defines extinction in a way that echoed my own discoveries and ultimately inspired the title for this piece, Lazarus Taxa. This concept refers to species that, after being presumed extinct, suddenly "reappear"—often in the fossil record—after a long period of apparent absence. Lazarus Taxa is about searching, getting lost, and ultimately finding a form of revival, even if it comes in a new variation or version.

As I delved into these stories, I realized that the boundaries between life, death, and rebirth are not as clear-cut as we might think. This work explores that ambiguity, questioning whether anything truly disappears, or if it only waits to reemerge in a different form.