Eliza Evans

• All the Way to Hell creates a new form of environmental resistance. I am transferring my mineral rights to 1000 people. Because it costs developers just as much to acquire 500 acres as it does small properties, this aggressive fragmentation of the property will inhibit fossil fuel interest in it. The aim is to make these mineral rights as inconvenient and expensive to acquire as possible. Over time, All the Way to Hell will become a platform for large-scale, distributed noncooperation in oil and gas regions across the country. This project examines and exploits some of the unique features of U.S. private property ownership. Property rights extend to heaven (ad coelum) and to hell (ad inferos). The 1862 Homestead Act granted property owners mineral rights to encourage western expansion. Mineral rights extend, in theory, to the center of the earth and the can be severed from the surface and transferred, traded, or sold separately. In all states, mineral rights supersede surface rights. Mineral ownership may be the most powerful and racialized form of private property in the U.S.
• 2019 durational performance I spent 8-hours inside a mass-produced greenhouse. The outside and inside temperature difference served as a kind of climate change scenario generator. The second part was to make the work interactive and invite people in to experience a possible future
• Transpire 2017 live trees, shrink wrap 55 ft (l) x 45 ft (w) x 20 ft (h) The work makes visible the impact of human activity on nature as it unfolds over two years. Will the generative force of the trees overcome the constraints of the plastic? Will the plastic attenuate or even suffocate the trees?
• Pause 2018 t-posts, monofilament, hardware 22 ft (l) x 22 ft (w) x 9 ft (h) An unambiguous grid system inscribed in the forest that by its shape and materials alludes to science, gardening. Can our grid patterns and input schedules adequately substitute for and eventually reanimate natural processes over the long-term?
• Quench 2018 Site-specific interactive installation: tree, bucket, water, lumber, cording, hardware 8 ft x 8 ft x 3 ft Bare root tree suspended. Below is a bucket of water. It takes the coordinated effort of two participants to lift the bucket so the that the tree can drink.