With the Land Open Call

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Sunday, May 4, 2025 @ 11:59 p.m. PST

We are excited to announce our newest open call for art, With the Land. This open call requests a reflective exploration of the relationship between people and the land that we inhabit. Landscape paintings are one of the classical practices of Western art and have been used to sell the promises of “unsettled” land; a call to adventure and conquest. How can we depict land differently in our time? What does our relationship look like with the “natural world” and how does that challenge our understanding of humanity? We invite artists to reflect upon and begin a dialogue with the environment. How can we live With the Land?

Our juror for this exhibition is Kim Garrison Means. Since 2003, she has used her visual arts skillset to highlight the wonders of the Southern Nevada landscape, as an artist, illustrator, public lands advocate, and one-half of the conceptual art team United Catalysts. In 2021, Means became the Searchlight area representative for the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument campaign and co-curated the Spirit of the Land exhibition at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. Through community engagement and creative events, she and many others helped the monument proposal gain strong support, and it was designated in March 2023. In 2024, Means received the Marjorie Stone Douglas Citizen Conservationist of the Year award from the National Parks Conservation Association for her arts and community work in helping to protect Avi Kwa Ame. Means is currently the director of the Mystery Ranch Arts and Ecology Research Station, which allows scientists, artists, writers, and historians to study the area and share stories about the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument landscape. Means also works as a college art instructor, an arts and communications consultant for local and national conservation organizations, and is co-editor of the local ecology, culture, and history journal, the Searchlight Gold Beam.