Exhibition At AIRIE Shows The Value Of Communing With The Land

Khari Turner’s “Fond Memories of Foliage” (2024) on display at AIRIE’s Nest Gallery’s “Land-Learning.” (Photo courtesy of Artist in Residence in Everglades)

The Artist in Residency in Everglades (AIRIE) Nest Gallery’s current exhibition, “Land-Learning,” exhibits the work of residents who had the privilege to remain in a cabin in Everglades National Park for a month, finding the intersections between their practice and the environment in which they were immersed.

After their respective month-long residencies in AIRIE, Khari Turner (Milwaukee, Wisc.), Maya Freelon (Durham, N.C.), Venus Jasper (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Meg Ojala (Dundas, Mich.), Sydney Maubert (Homestead, Fla.), Diana Eusebio (Miami), Gal Nissim (New York), along with musical residents Atéha Bailly (Somerville, Mass.), Kunya Rowley (Miami), and poet Alejandro Rodriguez (Miami), left work behind that at once shares their individuality and the many facets the Everglades can be perceived through, be it historical, communal, or environmental. The works are from those in residence between 2022 and 2024.

Close up of Gal Nissim’s “Revelation” (2024) (Photo courtesy of Artist in Residence in Everglades)

Khari Turner’s “Fond Memories of Foliage” (2024) hangs by the entrance; the portrait of a Black man highlights certain features (lips, nose, and silhouette) while subverting the image itself with gestural paintings of fauna. The paint has the texture and transparency of a watercolor, or of an acrylic paint that may have been distorted by spilled water. This effect is not accidental. Water itself is a motif in Turner’s paintings, specifically the bodies of water that tie black people to one another through chains of migration, slavery, and emancipation. Turner used water from the Everglades, water that sustains the marshes and mangroves, water that feeds into the aquifers and flows into Miami’s homes, to mix with his ink and paint this image. A simple gesture in the materials at once grounds this piece in the context of this residency and the greater arc of Tuner’s practice.

“Land-Learning” flows intuitively from alum to alum, attaching works with aligned, or tangential themes. This synchronicity is best exemplified through Sydney Maubert’s “Queen of the Swamp’s” (2023) placement directly next to “Fond Memories of Foliage.” Maubert’s work explores the relationship of Afro-indigeneity to the land, but rather than tying that relationship to the global threads of Blackness and diaspora, she uses the history of marronage through the Everglades to remind Black South Floridians of their history here. “Queen of the Swamp” portrays a map of the Everglades, superimposed with images of alligators, slave families, and people on a canoe. On top, the work reads “Florida Maroons,” at the bottom, “ft. the anointed.” The work’s punchy grit belies a spiritual message, one which ties black South Floridians with their ancestors, who themselves are just as tied to the land through pain and heartache.

Sydney Maubert’s “Queen of the Swamp” (2023) (Photo courtesy of Artist in Residence in Everglades)

Gal Nissim’s “Revelation” (2024) is one of two smaller sculptures in glass cases at the center of the gallery. The work is a flesh-toned sculpture of a hybrid Alligator humanoid woman, bare-chested and cradling a pregnant belly over a large white orb. The white orb clearly seems to represent an egg, and yet it completely dwarfs what a viewer would assume to be the egg’s mother. Furthermore, how can a mother have an egg (the reptilian birthing method) while having a mammalian pregnancy? She (the mother) is an aberration, a motherly juxtaposition that personifies society’s mixed emotions around nature.

In Nissim’s statement, they say “In John’s vision, a creature called ‘Tanin’ (crocodile/alligator) is identified as Satan. While today, American crocodiles are classified as ‘threatened’ in terms of conservation, American alligators play a pivotal role as keystone species. Their absence would significantly disrupt the ecological balance.” On a larger scale, this work is a reminder of how culture is always finding a way to be at a crossroads with nature, a hypocrisy that starts with the fact that humanity is of nature and yet pretends to live in a world separate from it, fighting it when it encroaches on its illusions of control.

Meg Ojala’s “Everglades Undone” (2024) (Photo courtesy of Artist in Residence in Everglades)

On the other side of the gallery, Meg Ojala brings forth a more somber collection of Everglades imagery. Thanks to the subject matter and the coloring, “Everglades Undone” (2024) is reminiscent of childhood days waltzing through Clyde Butcher’s gallery on Alligator Alley. This work feels more violent, more in motion than one of Butcher’s long exposure images; Ojala’s clustering of images, closeups, and linearity gives the effect of standing in the Everglades during a storm, literally watching the marshland come undone. The work is timely, as communities both local and global face natural disasters of increasing volatility, from as close as the Panhandle to Los Angeles.

Exhibitions such as “Land-Learning” demonstrate the value of residency programs for the larger artistic ecosystem. How else would any of these artists have been able to conceivably spend an extended time interacting with this environment, and produce work from it? Through its incubation of talent and programming, AIRIE also offers greater visibility into the natural resources that locals take for granted, even going so far as to put on multi-disciplinary exhibitions at the Smithsonian Design Triennial in New York City and the Venice Biennale in 2024.

WHAT: “Land-Learning,” Artist In Residence in Everglades NEST Gallery Exhibition 

WHERE: 40001 State Hwy 9336, Homestead

WHEN: Daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Through April 11.

COST: Free

INFORMATION: (305) 209-0177 or airie.org

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