Exhibitions: Fluid State of Land
Dates: February 10 through March 28, 2026
Conference Reception: Thursday, March 26, 6-9PM
Gallery Hours: Wednesday and Friday, 12-5PM; Thursday, 12-2PM

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

The Semiquincentennial (250-year anniversary) of the United States of America offers a potent opportunity for reflection and discourse. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the territory which constituted these new “united states” only accounted for a small fraction of the land the modern American Empire occupies today. These lands, which have held and nourished generations of peoples for much longer than a quarter millennium, are under imminent threat in myriad ways. From questions of property, ownership, and legacy to notions surrounding extraction, cultivation, and exploitation, the artists in this exhibition offer counter narratives to a monolithic story of America. These stories give a new shape or volume to the way we understand the construct of America. Not only in ideas of containment and expansion, but in terms of weight of what is held in the energies embedded in land and in clay.

Detroit, a city that has been shaped by cycles of migration, extraction, and reinvention, offers a critical lens through which to examine the American narrative. Through layered histories rooted in land, labor, and legacy, Detroit mirrors some of the broader questions posed by this exhibition. What histories lie beneath the surface of the land we occupy? How do inherited stories of land and loss shape cultural identity and belonging? How do we reckon with the land not as a possession, but as a witness? The forces that have pressed upon Detroit are both visible and embedded, forming volumes of memory, resistance, and transformation. In this way, Detroit becomes more than a setting; it too becomes a vessel, holding the tensions and possibilities that define a 250-year experiment.

(Quinn Alexandria Hunter and Bri Murphy)

EXHIBITING ARTISTS: Elizabeth Alexander, Magdolene Dykstra, Quinn Alexandria Hunter, Bri Murphy, Joey Quiñones, Lauren Sandler, and Rose Schreiber.

More information at: https://www.waynestategalleries.org/fluid-state-of-land