Leona Quarry Earthwork

 

This large scale, multi-faceted project brings together land art with community activism, environmental art and land use on a one hundred fifty-acre urban riparian site.

After documenting numerous violations of local and federal clean water laws on the site of a large new development, I worked with a small group of community activists to sue the developer and the city in federal court. This lawsuit resulted in altering the design of their developments to protect the watershed.

I see this endeavor as a large-scale earthwork that was the result of a political struggle played out on the landscape. 

Several interventions in the landscape frame the site as a large-scale artwork including legal text from the lawsuit stenciled onto drainage channels. The text continues in pipes underground and extends beneath the development itself. Several sites have become habitat for animals such as Pacific Tree Frogs, Western Fence Lizards and the endangered Alameda Whipsnake. 

Also  the creek itself was temporarily sculpted into a large inverted fountain that alters its legal standing from “groundwater” to “creek”.