Livestream: Lecture: To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home

About the Exhibition: Environmental threats and climate change are urgent matters of concern at Jesuit universities, where conversations on this topic often take place in reference to two documents by Pope Francis: Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (2015) and the 2023 update Laudate Deum. Artists play an indispensable role in our collective response to climate change. To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home, curated by Al Miner and David Brinker, will present work by Athena LaTocha, Mary Mattingly, and Tyler Rai, three contemporary artists whose outlook resonates with the themes of Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum. Embodying a breadth of personal, geographic, and cultural backgrounds, the three artists create works strongly associated with a sense of place, whether specific or imaginary. They employ media as diverse as photography, sculpture, video, and painting, and often incorporate materials sourced from particular locales. Yet the artists draw forth broader themes from this particularity, critiquing political and economic systems that perpetuate destructive self-interest and drawing attention to people who have been marginalized and historically excluded or harmed. The works are artistically compelling yet can inspire us to creativity and boldness in our efforts to address climate change. This exhibition will open at Saint Louis University's Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in Fall 2025.

This event forms part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation. The conversation will also be livestreamed on The Quick Live.

Image: Mary Mattingly, Saltwater, 2022, chromogenic dye coupler print. © Mary Mattingly, courtesy of Robert Mann Gallery

Host or Publisher Fairfield University Art Museum