Bio

A native of Rhode Island, Tori moved to North Carolina where she studied Psychology and Fine Arts at UNC-CH, later working as a therapeutic arts specialist and arts educator for over 20 years. Tori has been teaching in the Art Studies Program, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, at NC State University since 2011. In addition to her teaching, she has actively exhibited her two-dimensional work, mixed media installations, and object performances. Tori has shown her work at the Walker Art Center; Lincoln Center; The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; The Minneapolis Art Institute; The Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh; Hanes Art Center at UNC Chapel Hill; Meredith College; Man Bites Dog Theater in Durham; Duke University Theater; Yale University Theater.

Website

http://www.toriralston.com

Projects

*Perpetua, *Bench, *The Body in the Picture, the Projection of Self *Neural Pruning and the Meditative Practice of Rethought *Harvesting Pomegranate Dreams *Is It Okay for Me to Be Here, Fables of the Contemporary South *Body Memory *My Mother’s Voice *Not Me Objects

Area(s) of Expertise

In keeping with my education and work experience in psychology and visual arts, my research is informed by my investigation into personal identity and story and presented as interdisciplinary, interactive art works. Formally trained in two and three-dimensional art and design, painting, ceramics, theater design, sculpture, and puppetry, I am interested in finding engaging ways to present the quirky and strange aspects of the human condition, as visual narrative. Specifically, my recent work has been an inquiry into the areas of brain research and neural pruning, sensory misperception, and stories of the missing and insane. I work with a variety of materials that conceptually ground my ideas, such as 3-d print technologies, electronics, fibers, wax, text, and abstract sonic compositions to envision the work, which takes the form of material performance, installation art, experimental films, and stop motion films.

World puppetry is a profound storytelling medium that transcends cultures, using physical materials to explore the human condition, bridge the animate and inanimate, and tackle complex social and philosophical themes. The discipline blends visual arts, myth, and performance into a unique narrative space. I am interested in how world puppetry as a handcrafted, technologically hybrid and collaboratively animated form archives and transmits the human story across cultures, generations, time, and space, to world build.

My research investigates the intersections of material culture, ritual, history, and studio process work that is referred to as Material Performance, a discipline that in my case, fuses handcrafted traditions (fiber, encaustic, woodworking, rigging) with emerging technologies (3D printing, robotics, animation, vibe coding). At its center is the human story: how communities remember, transmit, and transform their histories through tangible, performed forms.