New Tang exhibition traces two decades of ecological repair through art, mapping, and science
September 26, 2026–January 10, 2027
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (September 15, 2026) — The Tang Museum at Skidmore College presents 500 Dams: Art, Ecology, and Radical Care at Anaya Springs, an exhibition tracing a more than two-decade effort to regenerate degraded grasslands in New Mexico through hand-built stone dams and the art, mapping, and ecological research that have grown around the project. The exhibition opens September 26 and runs through January 10, 2027.
For more than two decades, artist Bill Gilbert and landscape architect Anne Nelson have walked the high-desert landscape of Anaya Springs, building low stone dams by hand to slow rainwater runoff, capture soil and seeds, and help grasses and other plants take hold. Historic overgrazing and erosion had stripped vegetation and topsoil from the landscape, reducing its ability to absorb and retain water. What began as a daily practice on land they purchased in 2003 now encompasses more than 1,700 dams, far beyond Gilbert’s original estimate of 500. Their work at Anaya Springs later expanded through the Survival Kit Collective (SKC), bringing together artists, scientists, mapping specialists, friends, and family to study, document, and interpret the changing landscape.
500 Dams: Art, Ecology, and Radical Care at Anaya Springs brings that twenty-plus-year experiment into the Tang Museum, where visitors can encounter the work of the SKC members, much of it created recently, including interactive maps charting Anaya Springs’ watersheds, dams, and plant life; data examining soil moisture and plant diversity; aerial films of creek beds; botanical watercolors; ceramic maps based on the contours of the land and patterns of water flow; a hand-drawn animation of Gilbert and Nelson building a dam; and large-scale adobe works embedded with seeds.
“500 Dams is about the power of personal agency and collective effort,” said exhibition curator Rachel Seligman, the Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Malloy Curator at the Tang. “What began with the simple act of placing a few stones in the landscape has grown to more than 1,700 dams over two decades. By focusing on the small and local, the project shows how sustained attention and care can build resilience, inspire collaboration, and make meaningful change possible.”
Four of the Survival Kit Collective’s eight members will extend the exhibition’s inquiry through public programs at the Tang this fall. New Mexico artist and educator Ruben Olguin, whose adobe sculptures incorporate native seeds, joins Skidmore sustainability director Tarah Rowse for a Dunkerley Dialogue on September 24. In November, artist and University of New Mexico emeritus professor Bill Gilbert, who co-founded the university’s Art & Ecology and Land Arts of the American West programs, gives an artist talk followed by a conversation with Charlie Bettigole, a GIS specialist and former director of Skidmore’s GIS Center for Interdisciplinary Research; artist Lynn Grimes, whose work combines botanical observation, natural history, and art; moderated by Seligman. The following day, Bettigole leads a beginner GIS cartography workshop and Grimes leads a flora zine-making workshop.
500 Dams is organized by Seligman and presented in coordination with The University of New Mexico Art Museum in Albuquerque and the Southern Utah Museum of Art at Southern Utah University in Cedar City. New iterations of the exhibition will be presented at the University of New Mexico Art Museum in fall of 2027 and at the Southern Utah Museum of Art in fall 2028 through winter 2029. Mary Statzer, Curator of Prints & Photographs at the University of New Mexico Art Museum, and Rebecca Bloom, Executive Director at the Southern Utah Museum of Art, are curatorial collaborators on the project.
Public Programs
Thursday, September 24, 6 pm
Dunkerley Dialogue with Ruben Olguin and Tarah Rowse
Survival Kit Collective artist Ruben Olguin joins Tarah Rowse, Director of Sustainability and Environmental Initiatives at Skidmore College, for a conversation offering insights into 500 Dams and an early look at the exhibition. Dunkerley Dialogues are made possible by a generous gift from Michele Dunkerley ’80.
Saturday, October 17, 5 pm
2026 Fall Opening Reception
Celebrate 500 Dams and the Tang’s other fall exhibitions. The event is free and open to the public, with light refreshments.
Thursday, November 5, 6 pm
The Survival Kit Collective and 500 Dams: Artists Talk
Survival Kit Collective founder Bill Gilbert gives a talk followed by a conversation with collective members Charlie Bettigole and Lynn Grimes, moderated by Rachel Seligman.
Friday, November 6, 11 am
GIS Cartography Workshop for Beginners
Charlie Bettigole, Survival Kit Collective member and Director of Experiential GIS and Teaching Fellow at Middlebury College, leads an introductory geographic information system workshop. No experience is required.
Friday, November 6, 2 pm
Flora Zine-Making
Survival Kit Collective member Lynn Grimes leads a workshop in creating a one-page plant zine that can be copied, folded, exchanged, and shared. No experience is required.
Thursday, December 10, noon
Curator’s Tour of 500 Dams: Art, Ecology, and Radical Care at Anaya Springs
Rachel Seligman leads a tour of the exhibition.
All programs and museum admission are free and open to the public. The Tang Museum, located on the Skidmore College campus at 815 N. Broadway in Saratoga Springs, New York, is open Tuesday–Sunday, noon–5 pm, with extended hours until 9 pm Thursdays. For more information, call the Tang’s Visitor Services Desk at 518-580-8080 or visit tang.skidmore.edu.
About Skidmore College
Founded in 1903, Skidmore College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college of about 2,700 students located in the dynamic town of Saratoga Springs, New York. Consistently ranked as a top liberal arts college by U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, Forbes, and more, Skidmore has also been recognized for its innovation, value, and sustainability efforts. Skidmore fosters academic and personal excellence — all driven by a belief that Creative Thought Matters. Its comprehensive array of opportunities encompasses more than 40 bachelor’s degree programs, including popular offerings in business, psychology, and the creative and performing arts; competitive NCAA Division III athletics; world-class facilities; and hands-on civic engagement and career development resources.
About the Tang Teaching Museum
The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College is a pioneer of interdisciplinary exploration and learning. A cultural anchor of New York’s Capital Region, the institution’s approach has become a model for university art museums across the country — with exhibition programs and series that bring together the visual and performing arts with fields of study as disparate as history, astronomy, and physics. The Tang has one of the most rigorous faculty-engagement initiatives in the nation, the Mellon Seminar, and robust publication and touring exhibition initiatives that extend the institution’s reach far beyond its walls. The Tang Teaching Museum’s building, designed by architect Antoine Predock, serves as a visual metaphor for the convergence of ideas and exchange the institution catalyzes. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, from noon to 5 pm, with extended hours until 9 pm Thursday. More information at http://tang.skidmore.edu.