Anderson Gallery

This exhibition emerges from our individual and collaborative explorations of resilience and regeneration. Through sculpture, mixed media, and works on paper, we document and interpret the cycles of renewal witnessed in our natural world and in traditional cultural practices. These collaborations are rooted in place and in conversation and emerge during our visits to landscapes marked by fire, water, and ancestral significance.

Becky Evans & Robert Benson, Door to the Mountain

The inspiration for this exhibition began with witnessing seasons of wildfire in ancestral lands, particularly Ironside Mountain (Tse:nding), a sacred site of profound cultural importance to the Tsnungwe people. This is a mountain where, as elders said, "you could go when you were old and come back young again." After wildfire swept the mountain, we were drawn there to document the damage and the following years to witness the first green shoots emerging in a blackened landscape. These moments sparked our creative response to the question: how does the land renew itself? And how do traditions, ceremonies, and communities also participate in renewal?

Our work reflects on three interwoven stories of renewal:

The healing of landscapes after wildfire

The revival of rivers and watersheds, including the Klamath River following the removal of four major dams

The ongoing cultural renewal and protection of sites sacred to the Tsnungwe people

This exhibit is not only a documentation, but an offering—of respect, curiosity, and commitment. As artists, we too step into the role of guardians and interpreters. We go to the mountain, we go to the rivers,we pay attention, and we allow what happens there to shape our creative practice. In this way, Renewal is both subject and process: a collaboration with the land, with each other, and with the stories that continue to emerge from fire, water, and spirit.