Tension and Territory features new work by Lauren Strohacker. The time-based digital work and public installation is the result of her year-long collaboration with the Northern Jaguar Project and their efforts to sustain, protect, and expand the population and binational habitats of the northern jaguar.

Though once prevalent in the American Southwest, the jaguar population has since been decimated in the United States. Arizona is an important transitory space for the species, marking both the northern jaguar’s demise and its possible comeback. In 1963 the last female jaguar in the United States was shot in Arizona’s White Mountains. Two years later, the last jaguar, a male, was killed south of Tucson, completing the extirpation (local extinction) of the species.

Beginning in 1996, the iconic, apex predator has been documented in six mountain ranges near Tucson. While single jaguars have appeared, there is no evidence to suggest that breeding pairs exist north of the US-Mexico border wall, which creates an impenetrable barrier for the vast majority of Arizona. Other threats include the approval of the Rosemont Copper Mine in the Santa rita Mountains. The mine’s operation will destroy thousands of acres of viable jaguar habitat in the middle of their crucial movement corridor. Their only hope of recovery is the corridor at the US-Mexico borderlands.

Tension and Territory Events

Friday, September 29, 2017 · 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Reception with the artist at MCC Art Gallery, exclusive showing of time-based work Life and Death on view at MCC Planetarium

Wednesday, October 18, 6:00pm at MCC Theatre
Art, Ecology, and Culture: Collaboration in the borderland
Panel Discussion with Lauren Strohacker, Artist and Diana Hadley, President of the Northern Jaguar Project.

About the Artist

Lauren Strohacker’s work emphasizes the non-human in an increasingly human-centric world. Born in Ohio in 1983, she received her BFA from the Ohio State University and an MFA in 2011, from Arizona State University. Strohacker’s cross-medium, multi-disciplinary practice routinely collaborates with both local and national wildlife conservation organizations. Conceptually, Strohacker’s focus on wildlife and biodiversity reflects larger contexts of ecology, conservation and politics.