Edited Landscape | Gannett Gallery
Edited Landscape is an exhibition of mixed media works that investigates humanity’s dual role as both inhabitants and creators of our modern landscape. Spanning from graphite contours to sculpture and furniture, the exhibition unveils the intricate dialogue between the natural and built worlds, presenting them as dynamic, interconnected systems. Central to the work is an exploration of media that do more than construct the piece- they record their surroundings. Wood and brick serve as active witness to their environment. Wood grows, sequestering carbon, capturing its environment and gaining financial value as it ages. In contrast, brick emerges from industrial processes. Its capturing of the environment happens only in tandem with its degradation and loss of value. Beyond its physical form its life cycle encapsulates our mentality on industrial goods. By building with these materials, the work is in collaboration with the forces that shape our natural and built environment. Fabric, cast and hammered metal, drawings, and data collection are used to capture selected moments of the environment through qualitative and quantitative observation or direct translations. They translate the moments of collision between the two systems that create keystones of our modern landscape.
The tree of heaven embodies these collisions. Introduced multiple times to New York as an ornamental species, it now plagues the untrampled sections of the city: growing in the cracks of sidewalks, swallowing chain link fences, or sprouting in the foundations of buildings. Stolen to unfamiliar lands as a means to manicure and control, their destructive roots now put our concrete world at risk. Their success is dependent on our modes of building that erase native species to create a void for their growth. They are the byproduct of our relationship to the land.
Edited Landscape presents these complicated moments of overlap that call into question the division we uphold between nature, human, and the built environment. The exhibition weaves together the logic, form, and history of each realm, inviting a reflective dialogue on how we divide, inhabit, and create the landscape of our modern world.
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