By AIRIE

Miami-based artist and AIRIE Board Member Christy Gast will host a day trip to the Hole-in-the-Donut region of the Everglades in conjunction with her solo exhibition at Locust Projects entitled Inholdings, as a special fundraiser for the AIRIE program. The tour begins at Locust Projects with refreshments and a private chat with Christy about the work in the exhibition–a new single channel video and two life-size replicas of Nike Hercules missiles. From there we will board an exclusive motor coach for a private tour of the sites that inspired the work–imperiled slash pine forests, vanishing tomato fields, an ecological restoration project and the nuclear missile base. We are so pleased to have special guest speakers (artists and scientists) to answer questions during the journey. This one-of-a-kind tour offers a box lunch specifically tailored with an artistic/culinary slant from Whole Foods, which will be enjoyed at Long Pine Key. The trip will last about 6 hours round trip.

Hole-in-the-Donut, the site Gast examines for Inholdings, is marked by invasions and colonizations, both ecological and geopolitical. It is a deforested pine rockland in the Everglades that was plowed for tomato fields in the early 1900s. A HM69 Nike Missile base located there housed three nuclear warheads and was on high alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The base closed in 1979; the farms foreclosed decades earlier. Brazilian pepper invaded the fallow fields, and eradication required scraping the fields to the fossilized limestone bedrock. Lovegrass is the first native plant to recolonize this moonlike terrain.

Gast’s work stems from extensive research and site visits to places she thinks of as “contested landscapes,” which exhibit evidence of conflict in human desires. She traces, translates or mirrors those conflicts through her art practice.

Seating is very limited! You must purchase a ticket to reserve a seat. Tickets are available at the following levels:

Anhinga | $100 Includes gallery tour, box lunch, and Everglades tour

Snowy Egret | $150 Includes Anhinga benefits plus a special edition print created by 2013 fellow Alice Raymond

Flamingo | $500 Includes Snowy Egret benefits plus an invitation to a private studio visit with an AIRIE fellow

Buy tickets here.

Christy GastWar Drums (Production Still) 2014