TO LAND

To land: an arrival, coming to the ground, the end of a flight

To land: a trajectory, a direction, the aim of a path

To land: a dedication, an address, an appeal

To Land is a traveling art exhibition. It is a meditation on beauty tinged with loss, an entreaty to deeper connection, and a small gesture of atonement. The first showing took place in July 2021, at New City Arts in Charlottesville, Virginia and included three landform portraits: reinterpreted USGS maps rendered in different cartographic techniques. The intention is a metaphorical decolonization: instead of being about resources and destinations, these maps show only the land itself. Each one is a place that is meaningful to one or more Indigenous nations, and each landscape is contested in some way. In the installation, the map-drawings are accompanied by a veil of words: quotes about the connection between humans and the land from wide-ranging sources. Baboquivari Range was created after visiting the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose traditional territory straddles the current border between Mexico and Arizona. Bear Mountain to Rassawek depicts the James River, one of the waterways that have part of Monacan life for millennia. Malheur Lake traditionally provided sustenance to the Northern Paiute people - today’s Burns Paiute Tribe maintains a close connection.

Additional maps will be added as I continue to learn and make connections. The drawings are being offered to the respective tribal communities, freely and without conditions.