ROOTED IN THE CULTURE. GROWN FROM THE STREETS.

​

Rooted in the Culture. Grown from the Streets. is a meditation on defining “home” in Salt Lake City and what it means to cultivate such definitions. A result of a three-year curatorial project to connect and grow an art space and gallery, it takes place in a converted shopping mall space in downtown Salt Lake City. The project is a memorial and living curatorial project. Started in 2020, the work continues today in a new form and finding home Upstairs at Modern West in 2023.

​

-----

​

“Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.” - Dr. Ruha Benjamin


In 2019 I moved back to Salt Lake City, UT from Boston, MA after being away from the Utah community for nearly 10 years. Dissatisfied by the state of my local art scene, and the lack of spaces available for artists to gather, I opened Lost Eden Gallery. I had not thought much about putting down roots here in Salt Lake City because of my childhood experiences, but the move home marked the start of my current practice. In the years since, my work has often focused on creating and defining a home through a reflection of place and neighborhood, how a sense of home is formed, and what it means to call a place home. Through this work I seek to heal my past understandings of home, with a vision to reimagine and redefine my present sense of place. To grieve, celebrate, memorialize, and activate these ideas of home, my practice draws on a range of mediums including video, photography, painting, design, and installation. 
Lost Eden Gallery is a result of a multi-year project led by me and guided by the radical belief that everyone has a right to their neighborhood’s arts and culture. Named after the street I grew up on in southern Salt Lake (Lost Eden Drive), married with my parents’ cultural roots, the Gallery is Salt Lake City’s first Western Indigenous art gallery dedicated to fulfilling Article 27 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. As an art space continuously activated by a locally rooted art collective - the Gallery is a secure destination for both established and emerging artists to showcase their physical and digital designs. 

Rooted in the Culture. Grown from the Streets. is the inaugural exhibit produced by the Lost Eden artist collective: Mychaela Parrish, SinKeSo, Isaiah Cambridge, Pearla Aceves, and Javon  Parrish – an all Native cohort from the West side of Salt Lake City. The collective of forward-thinking, like-minded artists were brought together and curated by myslelf with an eye towards engaging the powerful and emerging art community here in Salt Lake City (specifically the West side). The pieces designed and showcased here bring together elements of home, culture, neighborhood pride, hip-hop, pop art, and Indigenous roots. As a collective, the group maintains the rights, economic benefits, and control of their art and creations. 
www.losteden.space