But I Misunderstood;
[6 houses & a porch]
2020-23
Drone Photography by Jordan Fields, Hi-Def Imaging LCC
Construction materials (6 buildings), plastic, aluminum signs, spray paint, trampoline frames, string.
But I Misunderstood is a large-scale conceptual art installation built on five Ohio River-front lots in Wellsville, Ohio. It is directly behind a railroad line where Norfolk Southern trains pass regularly.
But I Misunderstood is about the invasive, deceptive, and festering qualities of trauma and eating disorders. The structures are made of a porch and six two-story houses (most of them damaged by fire). Janko tore down each one by herself, by hand, with a crowbar and a New York hook using skills she learned in dance to balance weight. A former rectory she gutted became a shell into which she installed the lumber of the demolished elements, reassembling them as dense stepping corridors built from the openings between rooms and extending until blocked. These structures rise from the basement and crest the roofline. Every inch of the sculpture has been touched, retouched, reconfigured, destroyed and rebuilt. Signs reflect the artist’s insights about the place, her process, and inner landscape. She limns the metaphor this way:
“I am a building. A building that is a site of exploration that has been tinkered with by too many people, too many hands without proper knowledge. They removed load-bearing walls, took away shear strength, left a roof and no floors. They thought it was secure enough when they left; they thought they left me with a solid plan. But really, it was a building that was falling down. It may have looked normal from the outside, but nothing was holding up the roof. There is no option; something has to be done. I thought about taking the roof off first, but it seemed too scary to worry about or to do without being able to reach it from underneath. I also thought that I would have to support its every inch, like the sheer connectedness it lost would never be enough to stabilize it now. The effects of what was done to it could never be undone. So I started to build higher, thinking it was temporary, thinking I wouldn’t need it all, thinking this was just a phase, that I would come up with something better to solve the whole issue. But I didn't and so I built until the thing that was supposed to serve a small temporary purpose became the very building itself. It is holding the roof up, the brick I was trying to preserve is falling down. I take the roof off, throw it in the yard and let it scatter around the beast I just built. It has taken over the thing, left it secure but hazardous. Full of nails, I spend my time in the yard dealing with the aftermath, how to cope with the coping mechanism.”
Filmed and Edited by Jordan Fields, Hi-Def Imaging LCC
A View From Afar
2023
Make an Impression
Plywood, mesh, railings, joint compound, onesies, shoe coverings, audience participation.
Make an impression was a temporary interactive exhibit and performance installed in Toledo Ohio. The piece opened with a single mover inhabiting the space and then all ages and abilities are welcomes to explore movement and possibility on this terrain with them.
Sports Medicine;
[A Thesis]
2019
Filmed and Edited by Oscar Peacock
Sports Medicine; A Thesis is about what happened to me senior year, about grooming and coercive logic. Part gallery, part performance, part text, it is made of word salads and social alchemy. A show of indoctrination and self denial about acceptable ways of losing yourself. A show of logic slowly disintegrating and meaning being undermined by conflicting agendas.