Eliza Gregory

[Placeholder: Rhizome] continues ideas from the [Placeholder] project—searching for ways to repair ruptured relationships to land through artworks, workshops, publications, relationships and inquiry. This exhibition showcases projects with the Peregrine School Eagles and Crows classes, projects with Sac State Photo Students, and offers a glimpse into a new collaboration with the U.C. Davis Student Farm. Rhizomes, or creeping rootstalks, grow horizontally. So, here, ideas and projects have developed outward from where they first grew.

[Placeholder] is a project about holding—and being held by—place. It investigates ruptured relationships to land, and searches for pathways toward repair.

A lot of amazing people are working on the theme of humans’ relationships to the places they live—the planet as a whole, and the micro-ecosystems of each home, thinking about how we relate to our neighborhoods and local environments. My work on this topic has begun with an investigation of the work of others, from looking over my colleague and co-teacher Doug Dertinger’s shoulder at his decades-long research into visualizing landscape, to reading the new book by Suzanne Simard about her research into forest intelligence, to speaking with my friends and neighbors about the plants they nurture and the creatures they observe on their farms and in their gardens. This exhibition is an invitation to you to enter this research alongside me, and it’s a question to you as well—what else should I look at? What else should I think about? How do you think about and engage with land, with your physical home? I’ll be in the gallery to hear your answers, paper and pens will be provided, or you can send me a message at info@elizagregory.com