Long-Term Mindset: Artists Exploring Deep Time

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Scottish natural philosopher James Hutton (1726–1797), known as the founder of modern geology, realized that vast timescales were required to uplift mountains and erode canyons—deep time, time outside comprehension, with “no vestige of a beginning” and “no prospect of an end.” Timescales like these defy our imaginations. The most common analogy, coined by writer John McPhee, is with the measure of the old English yard: if the distance from the king’s nose to the tip of his outstretched finger represented all of Earth’s long life, a single stroke from a nail file would erase the whole of human history.

In Long-Term Mindset, three artists—Mark Chen, Sarah Hearn, and Evelyn Rydz—explore the anthropological entanglements that exist within, and between, geophysical life worlds. Additionally, our notion of the “anthropocene”—the unofficial unit of geologic time describing Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s ecosystems—stimulates ideas about human agency and responsibility, and relational concepts tied to non-human existences and experiences.

When we look at far away galaxies, or when we lay hands on an ancient rock, we are sensing distant pasts. For instance, the light of galaxy NGC 3081 and the granite of Half Dome, Yosemite, coincidentally both take 85 million years to travel and form. Mark Chen’s Pilgrimage of Light marries time of geologic formations and the cosmos by matching the duration of the star’s light journey with the land formation’s age through projection and photography.

Yet, our technology, and therefore observations, remain limited, leaving us with no definitive idea of planets’ physical appearances. Due to the speed and distances that light travels, what we see today of recently discovered planets orbiting the TRAPPIST-1 star only conveys what they looked like in the past. Sarah Hearn’s Astrobiological Futures is a science fiction account imagining what alien life and geology could look like from this system in the Aquarius constellation 40 light years away. She utilizes graphite, one of 12 pre-solar materials found in stardust, for her drawings while her sculptures mimic fossilized microbes, planetary core samples, and alien mineral formations, sitting atop mirrored plexiglass, colored to reflect elements believed to be present within the composition of each planetary core.

Complementing Chen’s macro view and Hearn’s imagined formations, Evelyn Rydz’s Floating Artifacts series highlights Earth’s transition to the Anthropocene, where manmade substances that never existed before anywhere in the universe are now building onto Earth’s outer layers.  Rydz conducts coastal field studies, gleaning tiny samples of debris that have washed ashore, documenting her findings under a microscope to create portrait-sized photographs that draw attention to the mass of human-made things that now outweigh the total biomass of the planet.

The exhibition will also include an in-gallery interactive that encourages active contemplation in relation to our ideas about geology, oceans, astronomy, time, and human intervention.

 

Artist Bios

Evelyn Rydz

Evelyn Rydz works across drawing, photography, installations, and community projects to reimagine our relationships with the natural world and with each other. Her practice explores connections between bodies of water, personal histories, consumer cycles, and threats to natural and cultural ecosystems.

Rydz is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, Brother Thomas Fellowship, and U.S. Latinx Art Forum Charla Fund. Exhibitions include features at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, MA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA; Anchorage Museum, AK; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Lowe Art Museum, Miami, FL; and Palacio de Justicia, Matanzas, Cuba.

Rydz has collaborated on community projects with ICA Watershed, Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, and MIT List Visual Arts Center. Rydz received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and is currently Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Sarah Hearn

Sarah Hearn is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Norman, OK. Through research-based explorations of biological life and natural phenomena, Hearn’s art practice inhabits two realms – one grounded in studies of life on planet earth, and another in a world of speculative science fiction. Her artwork reveals a multitude of invisible worlds hidden in nature opening a path of discovery to empathetic interspecies learning/appreciation. The artist works fluently in the media of drawing, photography, and sculpture. She frequently collaborates with fellow artists, scientists and municipalities on rhizomic projects that expand the fields of art and the concepts of community.

 Hearn’s artwork has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries and art spaces across the United States and abroad. She earned a BFA from the College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York.

Mark Chen

Mark Chen centers his practice on photography, expanding it through creative writing, collaborating with artists in various media as he explores the intersection of art and science. He invents and repurposes tools as he pushes media boundaries, devising new processes that make possible the executions of his concepts. For his latest series Pilgrimage of Light  which explores the mystery of the coexistence of the universe, Earth and people, Mark Chen travels to hard-to-reach wilderness to project galactic images, altering landscapes while he photographs them. The production of this series received a boost from his residency at Grand Canyon National Park in 2023 and 2024.

His work is shown in events and venues such as Fotofest, Griffin Museum of Photography and Houston Center for Photography. Teaching is an integral part of Chen’s art practice. He has contributed distinctive pedagogical methods to institutions such as University of Houston and Houston Center for Photography, and in his book writing. Having eight book titles under his belt, the latest title Photography: A 21st Century Practice(Rutledge 2020), has become a new photography classroom standard.

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Exhibition Details

Approximately 52 photographs, 10 mixed-media sculptures

(Some pedestals may be required by venue.)

  • Content

    Fee Includes:
    Press Kit
    Registrar’s Packet
    Programming Guide
    Gallery Guide
    Text Panels
    Narrative Labels
    Full Insurance
    Installation Instructions
    Custom-Designed and Built Crates

  • Curated By

    ExhibitsUSA

  • Organized By

    Mid-America Arts Alliance

  • Out-of-Region Rental Fee

    $8,000

  • In-Region Rental Fee

    $4,800

  • Duration

    7-week display

  • Shipping

    Van Line

  • Running Feet

    Approx. 210 ft.

  • Square Feet

    24 sq. ft. minimum floor space for works on pedestals

  • Security

    Standard

  • Number of Crates/Total Weight

    Approx. 5 crates

  • Insurance

    The exhibition is fully insured by ExhibitsUSA at no additional expense to you, both while installed and during transit.

Tour Schedule

Long-Term Mindset: Artists Exploring Deep Time is touring April 2027 through March 2032. The dates below reflect seven-week exhibition periods. Dates are subject to change; please contact MoreArt@maaa.org or (800) 473-3872 x208/209 for current availability.

Downloads & Resources

To view and download the factsheet for Long-Term Mindset: Artists Exploring Deep Time, click HERE.