The PRACTICE

Bridgette's work begins with images - moments gathered from lived experience, often tied to place, memory, and identity.

These images are not preserved as they are...
They are cut apart, fragmented, and separated from their original context. What once felt whole is disrupted - reduced to pieces, edges, and traces of something familiar.

From there, the process shifts. Fragments are reassembled - layered, outlined, and built back into new compositions that feel both recognizable and altered. Forms begin to emerge, often taking on a botanical or garden-like quality - something organic, growing, slightly surreal.

This act of breaking and rebuilding sits at the core of the work.
It reflects an ongoing exploration of identity - not as something fixed, but as something shaped over time through experience, displacement, memory, and reconstruction.

As the work expands beyond the page, these fragments move into space - becoming immersive, large-scale installations shaped by material, light, and environment. The process becomes increasingly physical and collaborative, requiring a hands-on approach to building, layering, and resolving each piece in real time.

Large-scale installations are supported by a small, evolving team - bringing together skilled contractors, fabricators, and collaborators, alongside individuals engaged in transitional work programs. These are paid, hands-on roles that contribute to the making of each piece - from early build stages through installation and teardown.

At times, volunteers also join the process - participating in the work and gaining hands-on experience as the piece evolves.

The work is not created in isolation. It is shaped through shared effort, problem-solving, and presence - each person contributing to the rhythm and realization of the final environment.

At its core, the work sits within a larger dialogue.

It asks questions about identity, memory, and belonging - about how multiple places, cultures, and experiences are carried within a single self. Not as a fixed narrative, but as something layered, shifting, and continuously re-formed.

Through fragmentation and reconstruction, the work reflects the way memory operates - selective, imperfect, and often reimagined over time. What is preserved is not always whole, and what is lost is not always gone.

There is a tension between what is fleeting and what we try to hold onto. Between what is seen, and what is felt. Between the original moment and its transformation through time and perception.

In this space, the work becomes less about documentation and more about translation.

It invites viewers to consider their own relationship to these ideas - to reflect on how their own memories have been shaped, edited, and rebuilt, and to find meaning not only in the image itself, but in how it is shaped and reshaped over time.