A Complicated Dominion: Nature and New Narratives

Curator. San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries: Main Gallery. June - August 2008

Artists: Tiffany Bozic, James Drake, Leiv Fagereng, Walton Ford, Tara Tucker

A Complicated Dominion stages an unsettling convergence of nature and culture, presenting works by five artists whose surreal, theatrical imagery investigates our shifting responsibilities and values in an era of ecological and political turmoil. The exhibition frames four distinct scenarios—feral pigs gathering around a banquet table, cuttlefish corralled into a perfect circle, a squirrel channeling punk iconography, among others—as symbolic confrontations between wild life and constructed culture. Through humor, poetic absurdity, and visual tension, these works sharpen our awareness of the contradictions that underlie our interdependent existence, urging us to reconsider what we owe to the non-human world and each other.

The participating artists brought diverse backgrounds and strategies to this collective inquiry. Some use video to simulate performative encounters—displacing animals into contexts of ritual and exaggeration—while others employ sculpture, drawing, or hybrid “plantimal” forms to blur the boundaries between species and systems. Their work surfaces hidden hierarchies, contradictions of consumption, and the discomfort of perceived dominion. Together, the artists trace how colonial legacies, rapid modernization, and ecological crises intersect, making A Complicated Dominion a space for reflection and provocation around what it means to co-exist in a world that no longer honors clear boundaries.