My new work explores the tradition of pilgrimage through a series of wearable art pieces, each designed as a contemporary shrine. These shrines are not just accessories, but narratives or memorials, containing handmade objects, collage journals, ‘sacred’ artifacts, bones, collected earth materials, and photographs.
The first two shrines in my series are titled Flower Queen Mother Shrine and In Memory of Forgotten Bones & Animals Made Extinct by Human Hands. The Flower Queen Mother shrine draws inspiration from archival May Day images, including a photograph of my mother as May Queen during her college years in Tennessee, along with bells and candles. In contrast, the Extinct shrine honors the lost lives of animals like the Dodo and Passenger Pigeon—species wiped out through human activity. It features a handmade journal, filled with collages of these extinct creatures.
Flower Queen Mother Shrine modeled by Abbie Downing, 2025. Scanned Polaroid Photograph.
Flower Queen Mother Shrine, 2025
In Memory of Forgotten Bones & Animals Made Extinct by Human Hands. Shrine modeled by Scott Lance at Reinhardt University, 2025. Scanned Polaroid Photograph.
In Memory of Forgotten Bones & Animals Made Extinct by Human Hands shrine.