Artist Biography

Cyrah Dardas is an eco-romantic artist based in Detroit/Waawiyaatanong, Anishinaabe territory. Their work is informed by experiences as a mother, educator, childcare worker, plant grower, and member of artist cooperatives, as well as through an ongoing relationship to land and ecological systems. Working across sculpture, textiles, natural dyes, installation, and participatory public programming, Dardas creates work rooted in ritualized art making as a tool for grief composition, sensuous repair, and collective healing.

Their practice explores embodied memory, interdependence, and processes of ecological and cultural restoration. Through community-rooted projects, gardens, workshops, and installations, Dardas uses art as a way of engaging with the world relationally—creating spaces for collective learning, reflection, and care. Their finished works function as archives of continual seeking, somatic remembering, and reciprocal exchange with place and community.

Dardas has presented work with the College for Creative Studies, The Shepherd, and MDW Fair. They have participated in residencies and collaborative projects with Sidewalk Detroit, Newlab, Room Project, and BULK Space.

“ I have been really enchanted by learning how to make dyes and paint. I think I find it interesting because it feels like a form of interspecies collaboration. I am interested in the ways that folks integrate elements of Place or the landscape and ecosystem into their art making practice, and how those artifacts become a reflection of the ecology they are made from. I really wanted to learn those processes and pull from histories of people making in this way, so I began researching ancient paint and dye making techniques and just immersing myself in the practice. In connection to this, I cultivated a growing practice that included some dye plants as well as many edible and pollinator plants. Gardening, foraging and exploring in this way has taught me so much about play, interdependency, and reciprocity. ”