In 2021 Rickles began her research and social practice project, Missing. Missing considers displacement, collective and individual perception, visual impacts of time on place, and questions the systems which allow places to "progress" or "decay." Missing explores if there is an emotive and/or democratic action being missed in the processes of development.

Missing began with the exhibition of Porcelain Homes, a participatory model inspired by her field-research documenting the everyday conditions of dead ends along I-20, at the Hi-Lo Press Five Year Anniversary group show. Participants were asked to “Please share the name of a place that is missing, the year you last remembered it, and any memory you have related to it. Then pin it to the model.”

Rickles selected six out of the twenty missing places submitted to the model to explore further based on if evidence of their history and geographic location could be found. Through field observations at the missing sites, Rickles searched for hints of the past and imagined the participant’s recorded experiences. She explored this idea by making a series of small sculptures that highlight the tensions surrounding spatial change in each place. She blended images from her field studies, research, and google earth aerials to interpret the passing of time and how it imprints on genius loci, memory, and the built environment.

For ASCENSION Rickles shares the participatory model, Porcelain Homes, and five of the small sculptures which include: Rio Mall on Publix, Pratt Pullman Yards District, Historic Foundation, and Rope Swing. For the sixth small sculpture, Rope Swing, Rickles enlarged the piece to human scale as an environmental installation.

In This Rope Swing on a Hill, Rickles imagines the missing site as it is today with a marker denoting historical significance. Rickles followed the style guide provided by the Georgia Historical Society for the Georgia Historical Marker Program (which is available to anyone to apply) to write an accurate historical narrative of the Rope Swing site from 1870-2022. In this narrative she includes the original participant’s memory that was submitted to the Porcelain Homes participatory model. A soundscape recorded during field work plays in the background - construction sounds clank, music from the nearby restaurants keeps an upbeat tone, and crickets chime together. In this fantasy Rickles places value on the individual and their connection to place. She imagines a world where the actions needed to process or take agency to influence the fate of disappearing places are accessible.

photos by Emily Llamazales