Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970

Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970 is the first major survey exhibition of the late artist, environmental educator, and landscape planner Bonnie Ora Sherk (b. United States, 1945–2021). Known for her temporary public installations and performances, Sherk developed her initial landscape architectural intervention Portable Parks I–III (1970, with Howard Levine) by temporarily transforming San Francisco urban “dead spaces” into lush, living environments complete with sod, palm trees, and live animals. Sherk expanded this approach as the founding director from 1974 to 1980 of Crossroads Community (the farm), also known simply as The Farm, an experimental community art and ecology center. Active until 1987, The Farm reconnected parcels of land fragmented by freeway construction, conceptualized new uses for overlooked urban landscapes, and laid the foundation for a global movement to reclaim urban spaces.

Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970 traces Sherk’s sustained commitment to art and ecology in the public sphere and her influential role within the first generation of California Conceptual and performance artists, as well as within the artist-run space movement of the era. It showcases newly transferred film and video alongside rarely seen photographs, collages, works on paper, artist books, printed matter, and ephemera documenting Sherk’s early performances and site-specific interventions of the 1970s and 1980s.

The AD&A Museum is an educational partner of the multi-year initiative High Performance: A 2-Year Conference (2025–2027), which celebrates and historicizes High Performance (1978–97), the first international magazine devoted exclusively to performance art. Through educational collaborations and programming, this exhibition highlights Sherk’s feature in the magazine. UCSB students will also offer personalized tours of the exhibition as a reflection of their learning environment and varied disciplinary interests.

Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970 was organized by Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco and curated by Tanya Zimbardo. The presentation at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara is curated by Ana Briz, AD&A Museum Assistant Director and Curator of Exhibitions. The exhibition at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture was generously supported by San Francisco Grants for The Arts, the FMCAC Board of Directors, and individual contributions to the Fort Mason Fund. The exhibition at the AD&A Museum is made possible by Teiger Foundation. Generous support is additionally provided by Isabelle Clara Greene, FASLA.