a collaboration between Architect / Artist Sarah Aziz and artist/farmer J. Eric Simpson, Tumbleweed Rodeo is a multi-sensory approach to understanding escapism and elsewhereness in the American West through the movement of tumbleweeds. Each tumbleweed is equipped with a GPS tracking device and then released in the northern outskirts of Lubbock County, near Shallowater, TX. The project explores the vectors of non-human movement against the backdrop of production agriculture. As the tumbleweeds meander and subvert the jeffersonian grid of monoculture, they force us to consider an entangled tumbleweed history that is caught up in discussions of human and non-human migration, in ecological alteration via agriculture, and of problematic notions regarding invasiveness and nativeness.

Tumbleweed Rodeo is an ongoing project. It will manifest itself through visuals- videos, maps, and sculptures. It will also include sound explorations in collaboration with musician Andrew Weathers.