all the ways to hold this tender land

This exhibition brings together four artists who explore nature, ancestral histories, memory, and healing. Engaging in lifestyles that forge connections to land, community, and the self, the artists in this exhibition use ceramics, steel, wood, film, and more-than-human life to consider reciprocal relationships with the environment. Connecting the spirits of living beings through their practices becomes a pathway towards cultural and ecological preservation.

In the wake of worsening climate catastrophes, such as the Eaton Fire, that damage the landscape and uproot communities, the exhibition reflects on bell hooks’ poem in Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place, Section I, which calls for collective listening as a way of understanding how to care for it. Together, the artists reveal how connection to the earth can become a means of restoration, reflection, and return.