Boxo PROJECT

In 2016 Bernard Leibov, Director of Boxo PROJECT invited Jim Toia to consider a residency at the Boxo PROJECT studios in Joshua Tree, California. Toia considered the unique desert landscape as a challenge and opportunity to make new work far afield from the humidity and foliage of his East Coast environment.

Toia visited the desert twice to investigate the environment and its nuances and discovered that the desert was very much alive and just as delicate and vulnerable as it is harsh and seemingly uninviting. There, he decided to focus on desert crust, also referred to as cryptobiotic soil. This material, an amalgam of microscopic mosses, lichens, bacteria, algae, and the fibrous tissue, mushroom mycelium, grow together in a symbiotic relationship creating a stable desert surface which provides shelter, habitat and purchase for other life forms. This unique ecosystem also helps to stabilize the desert floor and mitigate erosion caused by wind and rain.

When Toia placed a sample underneath an electron microscope he found a strange new world to inhabit and explore. The images that resulted are printed on Mulberry paper and acetate after manipulation in various software platforms. The prints were brought to Joshua Tree for his Boxo studio residency in March, 2020 just as the first wave of the Covid pandemic hit. Isolated in this new world, he found focus in the studio throughout the day and took extended hikes through the desert in the afternoons and evenings. When arriving back in the studio he hand-manipulated those printed images through a series of different processes and turned the acetate prints into unique recordings of his treks in the desert (Black Rock Loop, Indian Cove Scamper). In addition, he cast the mulberry paper prints over desert boulders (Cryptohomogenized). His works are a result of his direct relationship with these new environs in a new set of global conditions. And his knowledge of the region was aided by the help of many specialists and biologists in the region, including the Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park. All images and works done at Boxo are part of his Series 19, reflections on those rarified places and an unprecedented time.

On-line publications:

https://news.lafayette.edu/2020/04/23/art-in-the-desert-soil/

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=153451512531197&ref=watch_permalink