“Of our hand and in our time” is one piece of the show, composed of two large scale grid wall pieces like this one. Credit: Courtesy of Calista Lyon
934 Gallery addresses individual relationships with the nonhuman world by putting the spotlight on a Columbus-based photograph artist.
“The Bodies Are Mirrors: They Give Us Ourselves” is a solo exhibition created by photographer Calista Lyon and will be premiering virtually Friday at 6 p.m. and in person at 7 p.m. with an opening reception.
Lyon was born in Australia and settled in the United States 10 years ago. She received her Master of Fine Arts in photography from Ohio State in 2019 and now her work is displayed in several Columbus galleries. She is also a resident artist at Milo Arts, an artist community and live-work residence located directly east of 934.
Johnny Riddle, the exhibitions committee chair at 934, said Milo Arts and 934 are closely related, hence their discovery of Lyon’s work. The annual call for artists is judged by an independent panel of distinguished artists, arts educators, arts administrators and past 934 Gallery exhibiting artists.
The connecting theme in 2021 is human interaction. Riddle said they took care to represent different mediums, experiences and diverse narratives, from real-life situations to more whimsical approaches.
“We gathered artists telling the stories of interaction, whether it is with individuals or with society as a whole or — in Calista’s case — with the environment that we interact with,” Riddle said. “She really explores the ecology of humans and nature, and that goes in line with what the exhibition season is featuring.”
Lyon grew up on a cattle farm where she developed a profound relationship to the nonhuman world. She said she regrets that dominant narratives — ones shaped by the capitalist mode of production and the current political consensus — have separated human and nature.
Lyon said all organisms, Homo sapiens included, are inherently connected and part of the same world of narratives. As an artist, she is trying to reforge that bond.
“The Bodies Are Mirrors: They Give Us Ourselves” is a continuation of Lyon’s work on that topic. Her emphasis lies on how different life systems and bodies get damaged and how to visually portray these relationships.
“For example, how does gas extraction in Northern Australia relate to gold mining in the mid-1800s in relation to how we come to understand an ecology?” Lyon said.
Lyon said she worked with conservationists and amateur botanists and drew upon their photography as well as Australian and American national archives. She then wove different pictures and stories together and laid them out in a grid, illustrating their connection to one another.
One part of her piece is made of seven pictures from Peter Branwhite, an Australian conservationist she worked with closely. The artwork depicts fungi belonging to a box-ironbark forest near Albury, Australia. This natural habitat houses a diverse array of birds and flowers, including the crimson spider orchid — a rare, endangered specimen. Branwhite extensively and carefully studied the habitat’s ecology to better understand how to protect the orchid.
“Whenever he would see a fungi, instead of picking it, he would always carry a mirror and place it so he could photograph the fungi without disturbing it,” Lyon said.
Another part of Lyon’s work is a series of three images depicting spitfire sawfly larvae, which are stingless wasps that feed on eucalyptus and other trees. To ward off predators, they cluster in large groups and regurgitate the eaten eucalyptus into a smelly, sticky, yellow substance. Lyon said she compares that behavior with human social mechanisms.
“Coming from my regional community, I learned a lot about how you have to support one another when infrastructures aren’t there to help you and to guide you,” Lyon said.
Lyon said the reason she makes art is to process modern-day trends — land-clearing, biodiversity loss, climate change — and the inaction of governments to address them.
“The kind of radical change that we need, I don’t believe will come from politics,” Lyon said. “It has to come from people on the ground that are seeing it, people like Peter Branwhite, people who were deeply willing to understand and committing to fight and weren’t limited in their action by the particular positions that they hold.”
The exhibition can be viewed until March 20 at the 934 Gallery on Cleveland Avenue. Visits can be scheduled on 934’s website.
