Land Bloom 

2023-2024

Land Bloom comprises twenty-one digitally de-/re-constructing institutional archives of the twenty-one missions erected along the California coastline by natives and brown bodies under command of the Spanish crown between 1769 and 1823.  This piece was borne out of my family’s complex history along the Pacific Coastline, including that of one of my ancestors who was recruited from Coastal Mexico as a soldier to protect the Spanish during the Portola Expedition with the promise of land in Alta California over 250 years ago.  It was on this expedition that Mission sites along the Pacific coastline of California were established by the Spanish, including Junipero Serra, as an act of land and cultural domination.  This work includes both modern and ancient construction techniques, from the use of artificial intelligence to rewild historical photographs documenting sites of Native genocide to the use of rammed earth to create a pedestal of broken land and borders for these twenty-one photographs to rest upon. The foraged, rammed and broken earth, plant matter and detritus was collected from sites rooted to the Chumash Revolt of 1824 in Lompoc, Solvang and Santa Barbara, California as well as along the Portola Expedition Route.  This work pushes back against histories of the Mission System while decolonizing, reimagining and rewilding land directly associated with Spanish Colonization and the California landscape. 

Other iterations include cyanotype printing and botanical toning with oak galls, acorns and bark.