Mercedes Dorame uses her artistic process to examine and rebuild her relationship with the land. This talk will explore personal, social, and institutional connections to home, site, and land. These concepts intersect within her work as an Indigenous artist as she addresses both the taught and erased histories the land holds, as well as its broader identity in relation to ideas of landscape photography. Centering on Indigenous relationships, reciprocity, and kinship with the land, her work interrogates tangible, centered, and embodied experiences within lens-based practice.

Dorame will speak about her work and multi-year engagement with Unseen California. She will then be joined by Karolina Karlic, Director and Founder of Unseen California and artist Aspen Mays, part of the project’s first cohort for a round table discussion about the project and their publication, Language Has No Weather: Field Notes from Unseen California. Copies will be available for sale.

Sponsored by: Art Department Environmental Art + Social Practice MFA Program, American Indian Resource Center, Unseen California, Arts Research Institute, The Humanities Institute.