STRATA is an exhibition of Cultivate artists responding to the theme Strata as broadly as befits their practice and in relation to the town of Hancock, Maryland. Strata are the geological layers that time imprints on the landscape, they are the history lessons that leave treasures like pottery shards and fossils for historians, anthropologists, archeologists and paleontologists to find and use them to weave stories that reinterpret and reimagine our past. More broadly, strata can refer to family lineages, traces of dna that connect the past to the present in our bodies and minds, or can be connected to a particular site or landscape, as in historical environmental patterns no longer present but still creating evolutionary or socio-economic repercussions.

When considering a map of the town of Hancock and its surrounding area, it can also be seen as having layers. Part of an historic “strata” the town’s Main Street is parallel to I-70, the C&O bike path (formerly the C&O rail line), the C&O Canal and its towpath, and the Potomac River.

With special guest poets: Chrissy Alhart and David Abruzzi

Read more here: Strata Booklet