Graduate student’s art exhibit speaks on diasporic communities through soil
Fine arts graduate student LaRissa Rogers' show "On Belonging: The Space In Between" involves three different formations of soil and other materials. (Courtesy of Stacey Evans/Second Street Gallery) LaRissa Rogers is resculpting her history with soil.
In her show “On Belonging: The Space In Between,” the fine arts graduate student uses soil and other tactile elements to explore her relationship to land and belonging. The artist’s exhibit is on display through Friday at Second Street Gallery in Virginia, where she built and installed three slabs of soil on mounts. Rogers said she became entranced with soil because of how it not only carried the history of a particular land, but also conducted her own Afro-Asian family history.
“Historically, this act of movement and flight is very particular to diasporic histories and way of life,” Rogers said. “I started to think about what it means to create and make space and place and community and what it means to be in this nomadic state where you’re never somewhere for very long.”
This transient mode of being bled into her artistic process, particularly the manner in which she gathered the soil to create her soil slabs, Rogers said. While on a cross-country road trip with her friend and fellow fine arts graduate student student Jackie Amézquita, she said she collected soil at each state border while thinking about what it means to be in a liminal, unpossessed space. For Rogers, the soil carried personal and historical images, as well as ideas of how the plantation system, capitalism and patriarchy have affected the migration of diasporic people.
Soil is a nontraditional medium – as opposed to painting and sculpture – which Second Street Gallery Executive Director and Chief curator Kristen Chiacchia said allowed her to learn about the extensive creative process behind each piece in a hands-on manner. Whereas artists who created paintings would simply package and send over their pieces, she said Rogers created her soil slabs in the gallery space. Spending time with Rogers as she worked through her process made way for Chiacchia to dive deep with the artist into the symbolism behind the images present in the pieces, Chiacchia said.
“Working with these materials can sometimes be a little unpredictable,” Chiacchia said. “I said (to Rogers) that you have to look at the (materials) and the soil as your co-collaborators. Sometimes, it’s necessary to just let it go and let your collaborator take over and just adapt.” — Ashley Kim, Sept. 23, 2021
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
HEADER IMAGE: Fine arts graduate student LaRissa Rogers road tripped across the country, collecting soil at state borders to become part of her show “On Belonging: The Space In Between.” (Antonio Martinez/Daily Bruin)
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