FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Esha Chiocchio Restoring the Earth’s Canvas: Lordsburg Playa
August 25th though September 23, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, August 25th 5pm to 7pm

The remote Lordsburg Playa might look like a wasteland. Photographer Esha Chiocchio conjures it into art that carries a serious message—and a measure of hope.

The Pleistocene-era Lordsburg Playa, which runs north to south between the city of Lordsburg and the Arizona state line to the west, is the broken watershed at the heart of Esha Chiocchio’s beautiful—and devastating— aerial photography. Taken with a camera borne aloft by Chiocchio’s drone, the images encapsulate a valiant effort by a handful of people and a rare coalition of government agencies. Together, they aim to temper the disastrous effects of climate change and overgrazing in the far southwestern corner of New Mexico.

In the late 1880s, when settlers founded Lordsburg, a sea of grass tickled their horses' bellies and provided ample feed for their growing herds of livestock. By 2015, cattle had eaten the grass to the ground, and dust storms frequently enveloped Interstate 10, causing over 40 fatalities along a 20-mile stretch of highway since 1965.

The New Mexico Department of Transportation is trying a new approach to improve highway conditions: revegetate the surrounding land. A team of people is working over a multi-year period to recontour drainages, sow native grass seeds, imprint the soil, and build fences for improved cattle management.

Chiocchio’s photographic project, funded in part by an Explorer’s grant from the National Geographic Society, follows the progress of their work as they attempt to rebuild miles of grasslands in a dry and fragile environment. If successful, the Lordsburg Playa will serve as a model for grassland restoration, providing habitat, absorbing carbon, stabilizing soil, and reducing the risks of flooding, drought, and dust storms in the area. The exhibition Restoring the Earth’s Canvas, held from August 25 through September 23 at Evoke, is Chiocchio’s beautifully realized ode to land art grounded in a life-and-death reality: Can a 60-mile-long dry lakebed learn again to accept water, grow native plants, and tame deadly dust storms? “For me, this project is mostly about hope—the hope of taking a place that has been desertified, like many places around the globe, and restoring it to health.” Chiocchio says, “This is an inflection point for turning it around.”

The artist will be in attendance at the opening reception, August 25th from 5pm -7pm.