Ground: Zero Beyond the earth, the literal dirt that we share, the term evokes site, locus, and the menace of a target. In the case of South Florida, ground zero might point to our precarious position as a canary in the coalmine for climate change as we find ourselves in the crosshairs of sea level rise and strengthening storms. It also evokes closeness. Where the sky meets the sea, level with the horizon. Ground: Zero.

In terms of this fragile environment, whether it’s about belonging or experiencing alienation, documenting, protecting, preserving, warning, mourning, artists record the experience of place. We work our own preoccupations into our practice, as catharsis and as a way of transmitting them to others and adding to the world something that was not previously there.

The artists featured here have involved themselves in nature as their subject matter, and in some cases as a way of life. From observing and portraying in their own way the particular flora and fauna endemic or invasive to our region, exploring or exposing its rich and often forgotten history and our place in it, to using landscape as a vehicle for existential themes beyond the particulars of the here and now. We share this ground, yet like all life, we are passing through on a planet that has seen it all.

Curator: Peter Hosfeld

Participating Artists: Jason Aponte | John William Bailly | Peter Hosfeld | Carol Jazzar | Christina Pettersson | Onajide Shabaka | Asser Saint-Val | Magnus Sodamin | Fereshteh Toosi