The Speed of Light: Lisa K. Blatt and Christina Seely

The David Brower Center’s first show of 2015 features the work of photographers Lisa K. Blatt and Christina Seely. Their artworks explore the impacts of human civilization through two elements so essential to our existence that we often overlook their importance: light and time. Through beautiful images taken from...

Art/Act: Maya Lin

Every fall, the Brower Center presents the Art/Act Award & Exhibition, created to honor established artists who have dedicated a significant part of their careers to using art’s unique transformative power in the service of activism. In 2014, the Center recognizes internationally acclaimed sculptor, architectural designer, and ardent environmentalist...

Reimagining Progress: Production, consumption, and alternative economies

We face an urgent problem: our current consumption patterns outstrip our planet’s available resources, and yet our society continues to produce massive amounts of cheap, disposable goods. With its complex history as a center of international commerce, radical politics, technological innovation, and cultural experimentation, the Bay Area is uniquely...

The Lexicon of Sustainability: Information Artworks by Douglas Gayeton

Can we meet our country’s growing agricultural demands in a way that honors our earth? The David Brower Center explores the language of resilience in our winter 2014 exhibit, a multi-platform project featuring the work of Douglas Gayeton that uses photography, film, ethnography, and crowdsourcing techniques to uncover the terms...

Petrochemical America: Richard Misrach and Kate Orff

Every autumn, the Brower Center presents the Art/Act Exhibition, an award presented to an artist who has demonstrated extraordinary achievement at the convergence of art and activism. This year, we honor celebrated photographer Richard Misrach. Based on the book Petrochemical America (Aperture 2012), the exhibit highlights the unique collaboration between Misrach and landscape...

Almost Together

We live in a digital age, in which video chatting with someone in another country is often easier than visiting a friend across town. At the same time, we rely on physical spaces to facilitate connection and meaning — whether through a game of basketball at the YMCA, a...

Promise and Peril: A Study in Biodiversity

The natural world is in a state of constant flux. It seems that more and more often, we hear about the decline of yet another precious animal or plant species and the subsequent efforts to protect it from extinction.  Our greatest opportunity to make conservation a priority is through...

Before California: Laura Cunningham

The David Brower Center believes that art has unique transformative power, especially when placed in the service of activism. As art critic Lucy Lippard says, such art “cares about, challenges, involves, and consults the audience for whom it is made, respecting community and environment … and is engaged with...

Thinking Like A River: Art, Advocacy, and the Legacy of David Brower

Environmentalist, mountaineer and visionary David R. Brower changed the way our society thinks about natural places and, consequently, changed the world. In the year he would have been 100, we celebrate his legacy of activism with a special summer exhibition. The show features the exhibit format books pioneered by...

Land, Use: Works by Amy Franceschini and Fernando García-Dory

Amy Franceschini and Fernando Garcia-Dory share artistic interests and approaches. Using social practice methods such as direct engagement with communities, they explore themes related to humankind’s collaboration with the land. In particular, they are interested in how the development of contemporary cities has affected traditional land use such as...