Operation Tumbleweed

Operation Tumbleweed (2018-2020) combines performance, writing, film-making, and found object sculpture to explore the breaking point of landscapes either by border or body of water. As an interloper, K. Yoland deals directly with the Mexico/US border and subsequently with the more complicated issues around belonging, defense, and ownership over a landscape.

Operation Tumbleweed documents the K. Yoland’s kidnapping of a tumbleweed inside a bulletproof container. Subsequently Yoland embarks on a correspondence relationship with the tumbleweed as they travel along the Mexican/US border together. Imbued with its own perspective, the tumbleweed speaks to national identity as an inherently political aspect of movement.

Multi-channel video installation, performance, letters, sculpture, and photography are used to chronicle the migration and movement of the tumbleweed. Yoland approaches a serious topic by re-interpreting the iconic and deeply “North American” nature of tumbleweeds, immigration, freedom, and borers. The work examines personal agency and the fluid nature of identity.



The performance work travels through Texas, Northern Mexico, Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida including site visits in Mobile, New Orleans, Presidio and Ojinaga.  

Operation Tumbleweed was commissioned by Pensacola Museum of Art (2018) and has been exhibited with the museum as well as with Alabama Contemporary (2019) and L’école des Beaux-arts Nantes Saint Lazaire (2020) as solo exhibitions. It has featured as a lecture for the Museum of Modern Art Fortworth (2019), and as autofiction commissioned by Nasher Scupture Center (2018) pg 22-29.

︎ More images and videos for Operation Tumbleweed coming soon.