Kija Lucas at The Guardhouse

For her installation inside The Guardhouse, San Francisco Bay Area artist Kija Lucas surveyed the biodiverse vegetation in the surrounding parklands and created a new series of images inviting us to consider our relationships to plants over time. She highlights not only indigenous and introduced (non-indigenous) botanical specimens, but also the tools and supplies used for plant propagation. Made possible thanks in part to dedicated Presidio Nursery staff who propagate threatened, rare and endangered seedlings in labs and greenhouses, Lucas's work offers a glimpse into habitat restoration efforts currently underway in parks throughout the Presidio and Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which encompasses more than 82,000 acres. 

Lucas’s framed prints call our attention to seed collection envelopes labeled with a hand-written "SAVE 4 2023" Post-it note® and a sprig of Franciscan manzanita, which is indigenous, federally protected, and endangered. Her installation also features imagery of a handful of introduced plants, which due to human activities were placed here on the San Francisco Peninsula. Imagery of English ivy and Himalayan blackberry—which suggest “home” to the artist and many of us familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area—wraps and dresses up the interior walls, mimicking how these vines can overtake fences, even buildings, and swaths of land. Taking care when documenting all of her photographic subjects, Lucas gives us the trimmings, cautionary pin flags and all.

Kija Lucas at The Guardhouse is presented by FOR-SITE in partnership with Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture and the Presidio Nursery. The Presidio Nursery is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in conjunction with the National Park Service and Presidio Trust. Kija Lucas at The Guardhouse is made possible thanks to generous support from the ARB Fund.