LAND REFORMATION

Land Reformation was an invitation to the general public to participate in a communal mimetic ritual of creating a new landscape.

Work on the installation began in the Mojave Desert, where a section of dry lake bed was removed and transported into the gallery space. Visitors to the gallery dispersed the removed lake bed sand into a water-filled container and initiated its transformation into mud clay. Over time, the sandy clay solidified and reformed the dry lake bed section. When the exhibition closed, the reformed section was returned to its original resting place, piece by piece.

Through its reverential treatment of a site located in the theologically-charged desert landscape, the interactive installation was designed to simulate an ancient religious ritual. It offered a way to mimic the act of world creation through the individual action of casting sand onto water to form land. The ritual engaged in a dialogue with natural processes by challenging our conception of the desert as a landscape in stasis and revealing the continuous cycle of change and transformation in nature.

This work was staged for an exhibition at the Marshall Gallery in Santa Monica, CA in March of 2024