amanda walters

Know Florida

Published by Play Press Zine
Available for purchase on the Play Press Zine website

Know Florida deconstructs an image from a 1920s agricultural brochure, to better understand the motivations behind the design of the South Florida landscape, a process that is not unique and can be seen in most corners or North America and Europe.

Swamp Rainbow 

2020. NIAD Art Center, Richmand, CA

A series of textile paintings quoting newspaper articles from 1970-2007, each depicting strained, confusing, and often uncanny examples of humankind’s relationship with nature. Coded within those eamples are insights to the ways that we, collectively, have processed the signs of climate change, often through humor and dissociation. 

Peafowl Fantasy: an Archive of an Imagined Florida

Perry Family Art Center, San Francisco
2016

A series of absurd studies from research on human engagement with flora and fuana in Florida, Florida’s relationship with other states, a proposal for a science experiment, and highlights of the odd nature of bird owners. 

Inventions for Jim and His Dead Bird

When I was 17, I babysat for a family that lived in a tiki-themed motel located behind an industrial complex in the small beach town where I lived in South Florida. While sitting by the pool I met the motel manager, whose name, I think, was Jim. He was wearing a straw sun hat, a tropical print shirt, its front pocket stretched out from jamming and retrieving soft packs of cigarettes, khaki shorts, and beat up sandals. His skin was darkly tanned and leathery. His face was almost red.

While chatting with Jim and another motel dweller, we discussed the tropical birds that lived in the parking lot trees, which led him to tell us about his late pet parrot. Jim told us the details of her last weeks—her funny and lethargic behavior and of feathers that kept falling out. He asked if we would like to see her. We said, “sure,” assuming Jim was going inside to find a picture to show us. Instead, Jim returned with a plastic freezer bag full of a large frozen parrot.

This project is a proposal for Jim. In the years since we met I have thought of him often, and mostly thought of better ways for him to deal with the issue of his late pet’s mortal remains.