Beneath the surface of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona (USA) lies a vast network of burrows, tunnels, and rocky hideouts that establish a subterranean commons filled with nonhuman species. A flourishing microbiome, these (under)commons illuminate the complex entanglements desert ecologies have that can support life in what has otherwise been described as desolate, empty, or even vapid.  As urban sprawl migrates outwards in parasitic fashion, these unseen (under)commons continue to experience their own kind of metropolitan degradation, impacting not only the animals that flourish, but the expansive microbiome that is further struggling due to the persistent climate crisis.

Evoking adrienne marie brown’s idea of being in “right relationship” with the planet, a notion that enables how we feel and navigate pleasure as we experience life on Earth, this project shares new and ongoing sculptures, time-based works, and work on paper that consider the underground as a productive site for shifts that impact the surface. Through this work, pieces in this exhibition ask: In what ways do subterranean infrastructures, whether natural or industrial, impact what happens above ground? How might we imagine the invisible, the hidden, the unseen as conceptual, material, or critical frameworks to understand this important moment in building new relationships to the land?