what is slo intent?
photo by cat dorvilus.
slo intent is a project by cat dorvilus (she/they), using vulnerability as a medium of expression. it is a collection of works and curated spaces that invites its audience to slow down and feel. it emphasizes the importance of connecting to self, community, Earth, spirit, and nature. its purpose is to awaken and empower its audience in realizing their innate ability to heal themselves and to offer art and curated spaces where healing and vulnerability are honored and celebrated.
slo intent is a response to the effects of oppressive systems rooted in division, the commodification and destruction of Earth, and the severance of our umbilical connection to Earth by colonization, capitalism, and distorted patriarchal ideologies.
slo intent seeks to be a bridge of compassion over misunderstanding while challenging belief systems and ultimately hopes to disrupt the illusion that we are separate from Earth, nature, spirit, and each other, while honoring the cultural and ancestral practices of those who came before us.
welcome to slo intent.
for more details or to collaborate please email: CatDorvilus@gmail.com.
who?
photo: Franck Henry
Cat Dorvilus is a multi-hyphenate artist, curator, community organizer, entrepreneur, and earth worker whose work reclaims art as a spiritual and healing practice. Her curatorial approach utilizes curiosity, vulnerability, immersive spaces, and creativity to build bridges of compassion over misunderstanding, while emphasizing the process and the final creation. She uses art and curation as both her mediums and her canvas, skillfully weaving together people and purpose. Her mission is to create spaces and experiences where healing and vulnerability are not only honored but celebrated. Through her art practices and offerings, Cat invites people to feel seen, heard, and inspired while empowering them to the transformational sovereignty that awaits when they acquiesce to vulnerability and reconnect to the earth.
Born and raised in Miami, FL, to two immigrant parents from Haiti, she left home shortly after dropping out of college, choosing instead to make nature her teacher. For five years, she traveled with a backpack and a tent across much of the continental United States, finding lessons in the redwood forests of Northern California, the North Island of New Zealand, the Big Island of Hawaii, and the beaches of San Diego, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Through deepening her connection with nature and Earth, she was able to finally start confronting and healing the trauma she had subconsciously been running from.
She settled down in New Orleans in 2017, where she began channeling all she learned from her travels. During her time there, she created naked., an experimental open mic night, Nutrients of the Earth, a wellness brand inspired by nature and holistic farm-to-table, vegan food pop-up, wrote a poetry chapbook titled, wholy be my name, created wolf circle, a sacred gathering for divine feminine energy to be wild and honored in collective, kwè, a documentary series celebrating the brilliance in her community. In addition, she also participated in and facilitated community forums, deepening her commitment to collective healing and vulnerability.
In June 2021, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she currently resides. Her time there is spent making, community organizing, curating, traveling, working in harmony with the land as well as reclaiming her Haitian, African, Indigenous spiritual and cultural practices, through story, myth, folklore, language, herbalism, meditation, cooking, and creating.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
“The journey I’ve been on continues leading me back to the head of the crossroads, on the opposite end of where I began. Returning me back to a place of balance, non-judgment, and to being a di-unital observer to see the reciprocity necessary to make use of all sides as tools. Like Papa Atibon Legba, I’m an opener of doors, minds, and spirits—called to be in service to the balance of healing the umbilical connection between myself and others to earth. I strive to guide myself and others back to themselves, nature, spirit, and ritual, while honoring the wisdom that comes from the crossroads.“