Home Grown Vol. III

July 11 - September 6, 2026

WEST GALLERY

Home Grown Vol. III
Curated by Lauren Iacoponi

Home Grown at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is an immersive exhibition exploring the deep entanglement between human and plant life, featuring Midwest artists working with natural pigments, dyes, plant reliefs, hand-pulled paper, and organic materials that include botanics, mycelia, and artist-made bioplastics. Home Grown serves as a green space within an urban environment, with thought-provoking, nature-focused work integrated into a landscape of live plants. 

Many of the artists exhibiting in Home Grown are practitioners of bioregionalism. They learn and educate others on the specific history of native plants and local indigenous ecologies, understanding that humans, plants, and wildlife are mutually responsible for one another. Several of the artists exhibiting in Home Grown are members and volunteers of community gardens and greenhouses, and host educational workshops, field days, and stewardship events and programs within their local communities. They cultivate native plants, remove invasive plant species, and tend plants in ‘art gardens’ to create natural pigments and dyes, and to grow and harvest plant fibers for papermaking.

Drawing You Outside: Project Evergreen is a multidisciplinary art project and documentary film exploring the restorative power at the Evergreen Conservancy, where a series of filtration wetlands now sitting atop an abandoned coal mine, transforming toxic Acid Mine Drainage into clean water for the Allegheny River tributary. This is an ongoing, poetic film and art collaboration initiated in 2019 by visual artist Christine Forni with her husband and documentary film director James Forni. Deeply rooted in a partnership with the natural world, this work-in-progress utilizes film projection loops and cinematic fragments to explore the symbiotic relationship between ecological stewardship and creative expression. By translating the silent narratives of a healing landscape into a shared visual language, the artists explore profound themes of environmental transformation, permanence, and the delicate balance of recovering ecosystems.

Home Grown Exhibition Tour is a mobile exhibition featuring a survey of artists currently showing in Home Grown Vol. III at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (UIMA).

Exhibiting Artists
Aimée Beaubien, Kris Casey, Christine Forni,
Naomi-Hamlin Navis, Hillary Irene Johnson, Noelani Jones, Tulika Ladsariya, Jaclyn Mednicov, CV Peterson, SK Reed

Risograph Works
Aimée Beaubien, Christine Forni, Maven Kennedy, Tulika Ladsariya, Katelyn Patton, Monika Plioplyte, Reina Sundara

Home Grown Exhibition Tour
Organized and Curated by Lauren Iacoponi
Facilitated by Naomi Elson & Lauren Iacoponi
(Unpacked Mobile Gallery)
Supported by DCASE Individual Artists Program Grant

Home Grow Exhibition Tour
Unpacked Mobile Gallery
July 11 - 18, 2026