Cyrah Dardas

Cyrah Dardas is a Queer, eco-feminist artist and care worker living in Detroit /Waawiyaatanong, Anishinaabe territory. Dardas uses her art practice as a tool in remembering the lost relationships between humans and non-human beings because of the extractive nature of capitalism by regulating and healing our collective body to restore interdependency. Cyrah’s work is informed by their experiences in childcare, gardening, as a member of an artist cooperative, Portal For and through their work with natural fibers, earth pigments, and botanical inks. Their practice is deeply rooted in ritualized art making, using the process as well as the work itself as a tool for grief composition, and collective healing .


To each of those, the ones who leave - Artist statement:

This piece is an archive of a practice I began to process my experience of displacement due to familial and intimate partner violence. In it I articulate a process of  healing through a somatic relating to earth and place;  finding home through an experiential and relational movement based learning.

I consider this experience within the more macro and systemic forms of violent displacement we experience/d that forces us to relinquish our homes, belongings and belonging in search of safety and wellbeing.  

The site I am making this work on is the backyard of one of my former homes.  Piece by piece this home and its once existing barn have crumbled over time leaving brick and fragments of home scattered around its parameter. After collecting the brick and debris I break it down into powder and use it as a drawing material, creating patterns on glass. I make this sculpture in the landscape to be seen and to be held here by it and consider it as a composting of my grief. The interaction between the movement of my body and the movement of earth; creating form, dissipating and reforming.