Symbiocene Era: Artists Envision Environmental Symbiosis

Bushel Collective

106 Main Street, Delhi NY

Oct 5-Nov 3, 2024

Opening: Saturday, Oct 5, 4-7pm

Hours: Sat & Sun 12-noon
This mixed-media curatorial debut by Kathleen Sweeney features eleven innovative women artists exploring diverse pathways of collaboration with nature in their artistic output as woodland foragers, mixed media painters, storytellers, upcyclers, 3D modelers, mineral and plant pigment artisans, weavers, found-object sculptors, deep time photographers, and experimental videographers. 
These explorers, solutionists and innovators with a footprint in the Catskills, NY watershed include Sarah Bachinger, Susie Bellamy, Toni Brogan, Sharon Horvath, Christina Hunt Wood, Robin Kahn, Emily Johnston, Rachel Owens, Heather Phelps-Lipton, Christie Scheele, and Kathleen Sweeney.

“Symbiocene” takes its root from “Symbiosis,” or ‘living together’ to co-create and envision a world of mutual respect for all living beings, beyond the human-centrism of the Anthropocene Era. The exhibition includes works by artists deeply engaged with the natural world as makers, activists and solution-makers intent on expanding their community role to share storytelling, artisanal skills and creativity in the quest for symbiotic planetary existence.

The Symbiocene Era exhibition features the work of multicultural painters, storytellers, artisans, interdisciplinary artists, found object sculptors, photographers, and videographers who inhabit the woodlands and waterways of the Catskills in New York State.

These artists, solutionists, ecoartivists and changemakers are integrating creative practices into deeply engaged environmental awareness, expanding what it means to be responsible creators. This includes questioning their own carbon footprints through creative reuse and art material sourcing while moving out of the studio into community to help co-create alternative visionary narratives beyond dystopia and despair.

The exhibition concept focuses on envisioning a world of collaboration with nature in all aspects of creative revisioning of our relationship to diversity, honoring our homeland, and expanding alliances to protect the ecosystems of the Catskills and beyond.