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Next Open Hours:
June 4, 3 - 6pm
Nathalie Alfonso
Susana Oliveros Amaya
Brook-Lynne Clark
Isaac Dunne
Emily Lee
Hélène Schlumberger
The Texas Blackland Prairie—the ecoregion where Dallas is located—is the most endangered large
ecosystem in North America (currently, less than 1% remains). Sweet Pass Sculpture School artists
conducted a broad survey of this lost prairie, exploring remnant parcels in the Clymer Meadow and
Frankford Church and the manufactured prairie of the GW Bush library. They examined how Dallas'
construction has shaped its surrounding ecology and how the city and natures incorporation into its
tangled mass. The works presented respond to this contemporary environment, ranging from
self-contained sculptural objects to landscape interventions and movement-based performance
video.
In prairie landscapes, bottomlands appear as depressions in the earth, sunken and soggy places
sitting at a river's edge. The artists in Sculpture School found home in that metaphor, sinking their
toes into the mire of the overlooked, unseen, and unloved. Physically and metaphorically mining the
landscape, the artists in Bottomland present alternative understandings of the local, from monuments
to native flora. Formal aspects of the show draw on extractive and additive methods used in the
construction of the built environment, redefining topographies, installing announcement systems, and
placing signage to direct traffic through the space. Performing burned prairie as spiritual rebirth, hybridizing gilgai as cardinal directors, and highlighting the mechanized maintenance of designed
landscapes, the works interweave with the park to create a complex ecology of collective inquiry.
Sweet Pass Off-site Project
707 W Commerce St. Dallas, TX 75208
Sweet Pass is proud to present Niva Parajuli’s Chin Chin & Muck Muck (2021), the artist's first full scale sculpture and public project. Chin Chin & Muck Muck (whose title is taken from a song) offers a playful and colorful intervention in the “parklet” of the newly constructed 707 Townhomes in West Dallas. Made from pigmented gypsum, fiberglass, and wood; these various organic forms (amoebas, arcs, stumps) are harmoniously arranged in a common space inviting both the solitary and social. Considering the multiple sitelines of the surrounding architecture and the shifting of light throughout the day, Parajuli pulls from a lexicon of forms in his painting practice to provide a dynamic installation for residents and the surrounding community.