Written on the Land: Observations on Sustainability in the Louisiana Bayou and the California Desert

• Virginia Beahan, Senior Lecturer in Studio Art, Dartmouth College
• Katherine Hart, Senior Curator of Collections and Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Curator of Academic Programming, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College
• Anthony V. Nida, Colonel, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Retired Project Director, Fluor Corporation
• Michael J. Beahan, Director Emeritus, Jones Media Center at Dartmouth College
• Toby Jurovics, Chief Curator and Holland Curator of American Western Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska

Written on the Land: Observations on Sustainability in the Louisiana Bayou and the California Desert

As an artist, I am attracted to contested landscapes, areas where multiple human needs and desires compete for primacy; sites where nature itself exerts raw power and influence, shaping human response to its inevitable laws. The Salton Sea in Southern California and the wetlands and coastline in Southern Louisiana are such places and function as unique lenses through which we may discover more about our motives and aspirations as we consider the quality of our environment. As we truly recognize our finite resources—it is this land that nurtures and sustains us—we must shift our attitudes about how we grow the food we eat, where we locate the homes we inhabit, on what basis we choose places to recreate, and the manner in which we explore and produce the energy that fuels our economy.

I propose a visual examination of where we are, and by extension, a reimagining of our modes of being in the spaces we already inhabit, the places we may be forced to leave, and the new locations we may need to seek. My hope is that my photographs will inspire more progressive thinking and action regarding a sustainable future for our planet.