TOMIKO JONES: THESE GRAND PLACES

May 8-August 1, 2025

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Tomiko Jones's place-based photographic practice is deeply rooted in explorations of the natural world and the ways in which people engage with it. Working in situ, she uses time, observation, and documentation as tools for understanding.

These Grand Places is a multi-year project that Jones began in 2017, during Donald Trump's first presidential term, when he signed proclamations that removed protections from more than 2 million acres of national monument land, which opened up previously protected areas to potential drilling, mining and logging. Prompted by these policies, Jones, over the next several years, traveled to many of the sites under federal review.

During her immersive residencies, she documented human-influenced environmental changes, political interventions in the landscape, and her own interactions with the land and its human and non-human inhabitants. The resulting interplay of photography, written impressions, and collected ephemera offers a poignant meditation on the politics of public land and its impact on our notions of national identity.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Tomiko Jones’ photography and multidisciplinary installations explore social, cultural, and geopolitical transitions, considering the twin crises of too much and too little in the age of climate change.

A major mid-career retrospective of Jones’ work, titled The Intimate Infinite (January 3 – March 22, 2025) and curated by Cecily Cullen, was recently presented at the Center for Visual Arts (Denver, CO).

Jones is the recipient of awards including the En Foco New Works Fellowship (New York, 2014), 4Culture and City Artists (Seattle, 2010), and Pépinières Européennes pour Jeunes Artistes (France, 2008). She was an invited resident artist at Museé Niépce in Chalon-Sur-Saône, France (2008), and selected for a project-specific Fellowship at The Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France (2009). She has received recognition for her photographic works by Analog Sparks (2023) and Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass Top 200 (2022). 

Jones received her MFA and Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Arizona, Tucson, where she studied with Professors Sama Alshaibi and Frank Gohlke. She is Associate Professor of Art at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vilas Professorship, Early-Career Investigator Award (2024-27). Her professional experience includes a Visiting Artist and Curator-in-Residence position at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, Assistant Professor and Photography Program Coordinator at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Mendocino College, New Mexico State University and Drury University Summer Institute for Visual Arts.