DEAR MR. KROPELNICKI: Implementing Perpetual Landscapes in West Petaluma (2017)

"DEAR MR. KROPELNICKI" was a public presentation about a letter my mother wrote on behalf of 13.62 acres of unincorporated property in West Petaluma, California, she believes should be preserved as designated Open Space. The talk performed a close reading of the letter accompanied by abstract representations of the land-subject. The reading considered how specific language produces a visual landscape, constructs agency and attempted to think towards a conceptualization of the land as subject.

This talk was about how words work, for whom/what, and how language pre-figures or assigns animacy. It was simultaneously about a strategic expansion of personhood, one that includes non-living subjects - in particular: land.

PLACE TALKS is a series of visual lectures that occurs at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco. Bay Area artists, writers, designers, architects, archivists, librarians (and other curious people) share talks on location-related topics, illustrated by content from the library's collection.