To open a new film from Art21, artist Lenka Clayton encapsulates her way of thinking and making: “Looking at things that are supposed to behave a certain way and purposefully misunderstanding how they should be used, it’s really important to me,” she says.

The Cornwall-born artist works across media, creating both meditative animations via typewriter and immersive installations of gathered artifacts. Collecting is central to Clayton’s practice both materially and conceptually, and she often works from her own experiences, particularly those around becoming a parent and her life in Pittsburgh (she even started an open-source residency program for artist mothers).

In the short documentary, we see Clayton’s culinary installation of colorful tongs hung in a grid on her studio wall alongside a project completed when her son was a baby. Each time she retrieved a spool of thread, button, acorn, bottle cap, or myriad other object from her child’s mouth, she documented the tiny finding and created an enormous, photographic grid that speaks to the care required to protect young life.

“There is only connection in life,” she says, “and my work is just looking at those connections, so that we can create a shared experience.”

This segment is part of Art21’s Human Nature episode, alongside Colombian artist Delcy Morelos, and both are available for viewing on Art21’s website. Find more from Clayton on Instagram.