Emerson Contemporary

A Sentient Land: Aesthetic Alliances with Forests, Beetles, Salt, and Air
2026-01-21 12:00 - 2026-03-28 18:00 (America/New_York)
Nelly-Eve Rajotte, Les arbres communiquent entre eux à 220 hertz, 2024. Video installation: 3-channel 4K video, colour, generative sound, 25 min; modular synthesizer, electrodes, and tree. VFX artist and software developer: Codrin-Mihail Tablan Negrei. Courtesy of the artist.

A Sentient Land: Aesthetic Alliances with Forests, Beetles, Salt, and Air, a four-person exhibition featuring works made through innovative intersections of science, aesthetics, and spirituality.

Artists Margaux Crump, Julia Krupa, Eileen Ryan, and Nelly-Eve Rajotte realize the potential of communicating directly and sharing authorship with the materials they use to make their art. Their artistic practices are intuitive and collaborative, enabling trees, stones, salt, and air, among other materials, to inform the creative process and the resulting potential meanings. Their methods include a cloud chamber, oral history, bio-sonification, LIDAR scanning, fumage, and saining.

The resulting works of art forge stronger interspecies connections and increased empathy and hope for the future. These innovative modes of working also raise questions: do the artists translate on behalf of the materials? How do speculation and anthropomorphism fit into these explorations of restoration, time, and scale? The four immersive installations engage viewers in dynamic aesthetic experiences that may linger beyond the gallery as a shift in perspective.

Curated by Shana Dumont Garr

Exhibition catalogue featuring essays by Shana Dumont Garr, Doctoral Candidate, Jennifer Hall, Ph.D., and Martina Tanga, Ph.D.

Public Art Walking Tour with artists Elisa Hamilton and Clareese Hill *RESCHEDULED to April 18, 2026
2026-04-18 14:00 - 15:30
Join artists Elisa Hamilton and Clareese Hill on a special artist lead walking tour of their two new public art projects Glimpses of Glapion and The Black Boston Dream Oracle in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Meeting Point: Boston Common Visitor’s Center

Elisa Hamilton’s project Glimpses of Glapion will present a series of digital vignettes honoring the life and legacy of Louis Glapion. Glapion was a French, biracial hairdresser and barber who, together with his friend George Middleton, built and owned what is now considered the oldest extant house in Beacon Hill, located at 5 Pinckney Street. While more is known about Middleton, the artist’s research has uncovered glimpses of Glapion that speak to an interesting and noteworthy life based in Beacon Hill. Hamilton seeks to honor Glapion and enliven curiosity about his lived experiences in our city. The AR experience will be available on Hoverlay and accompanied by a research document designed for educational purposes.

Clareese Hill’s The Black Boston Dream Oracle is a speculative reimagining of The Complete Fortune Teller and Dream Book written by Chloe Russel, a 19th-century Black woman from Massachusetts. By blending historical wisdom with future-focused fabulations, the Black Boston Dream Oracle will provide a unique space for reflection, healing, and imagining new possibilities for liberation and collective well-being through early Black feminist thought. The Oracle will be presented as an Extended Reality (XR) experience available on the Hoverlay application, accompanied by a web-based research document designed for educational purposes.
