(Re)place--California Botanic Garden, Claremont, CA, 2021

(Re)place is a collaboration between artist Brandon Lomax and the California Botanic Garden’s past, present and future. Sculptural works will be shown at various stages of completion from fully-fired clay works that are as durable as stone as well as unfired works that are more vulnerable to the weather and elements of the Botanic Gardens. With guidance from the garden’s horticultural specialists, Lomax embedded some works with native plant species. Throughout the duration of the exhibit, unfired clay works will disintegrate and rejoin the soil, their once solid forms replaced by new plant species.

The selected works suggest the impermanent transience of population diversity within a given place. Some lasting far longer than others, the fired works will serve as monuments to sustainability, while others represent the natural cycle of selection and species dominance.

Referencing multiple meanings of place, the exhibit becomes the site of restoration, substitution and belonging as it celebrates diversity in all forms: class, race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. The show reminds us that we are here because we are vital contributors. The artist’s hope is that we humans can celebrate our own biodiversity, and work together to create a more symbiotic relationship with our earth in this place, and every other.