Carla Bengtson

with lizards

with perfume and lizards

with Flickers

with orchid bees in Amazon

with trump

with chameleon

with hummingbirds

with moth

with finger

Death Valley Wind Installation shot, Demo Projects, Springfield, Illinois fan, archival print, wood, metal. 2014 [email protected] copyright 2019 Detail [email protected]

The Space Between Utopia and Dystopia Dimensions Variable, 2010 A personal apocalypse tracker. The two panels can be moved closer,

Play Video Multi-partner Pollination Event Silicone, wood, flowers, clay, moss, Video clip: 1:40, 2014.  Site intervention, San Isidro, Ecuador. [email protected] copyright

Play Video Teaching Aid Site intervention document, Peterson’s Guide to the Insects, Tiputini Biodiversity Research Station, Yasuní, Ecuador, Video clip:

During a summer residency at the Tiputini Biodiversity Research Station, I offered a Dutch Boy paint sample and nontoxic ink to a colony of leaf cutter ants.

Video, 2013.
Letters appropriated from found material at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, Ecuador, arranged on a leaf cutter ant trail to spell out MY CULTURE IS YOUR NATURE. A video of the site intervention captures the ants removing MY CULTURE IS, while inexplicably leaving YOUR NATURE.

This project is a tongue-in-cheek attempt at helping monkeys to evolve by teaching them to point at snakes. The site-responsive intervention, carried out during a residency at the Tiputini Research Station in the Ecuadorian Amazon, consists of me demonstrating the nuances of pointing to howler monkeys in an enormous fig tree, using a range of “tools” and “signs”: prosthetic hands, photographic aids, and popular cinema.

During a residency at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Amazon I offered Dutch Boy “Home Decorator” series paint samples, along with non-toxic ink, to a colony of leaf cutter ants.

Atta sexdens leaf cutter ant tracks in water-based ink on Dutch Boy paint sample, executed at Tiputini Biodiversity Station, Yasuni Reserve, Ecuador. In collaboration with Dr. Peter Wetherwax. [email protected]

This video speculates upon the extent to which signs can be broken and meanings reassigned. The video returns me to the primal scene and tracks me chasing monkeys through the jungle, attempting to give the offending sign, with a banner saying This means hello I’m happy to see you, back to the monkeys.

During an artist residency at the Ucross Foundation, I tried to tempt a studio mouse onto a photographic surrogate of my hand to see if I could experience its touch in proxy.

One day a stink bug wandered into my studio…