Gallery 2

Established during artist Doug Fogelson’s 2015-2016 residency with Openlands, one of the oldest metropolitan conservation organizations in the nation, the Open Land Art and Fact Team (O.L.A.F.T.) conducts research which studies the tensions between natural, outdoor spaces and the humans interacting with them. During visits to various preservation areas in northern Illinois—forest preserves, prairies, and other locations with native flora and fauna—O.L.A.F.T. took photographs and collected man-made and organic samples, artifacts of these sites.

O.L.A.F.T. will display these images and artifacts, along with maps of visited areas. This exhibition aims to remind and educate audiences about the planet’s ecology, and how the human presence is inextricably entwined with nature. Using map markers, stickers, comment cards, and multiple choice questions, Openlands invites visitors to participate in the project, contributing their personal reactions and responses. O.L.A.F.T. hopes that this work inspires conversation about conservation, asking visitors to see themselves within nature and to envision the possibility of reinventing, or shifting the discourse on human relationships with the land.