The Land Tells Our Stories

Some landscapes hold more than what you can see standing in them. That idea sits at the center of The Land Tells Our Stories, a Trustees exhibition of site-responsive work by three New England artists, on view across Massachusetts from June 1 through October 31, 2026.

We were brought in to document the full arc of the project, from fabrication and install through the finished works living outdoors in the places they were made for. The result is a short documentary and a body of still photography that follows each artist onto the land.

May Babcock's Seaside Chestnuts is installed at Moose Hill Farm in Sharon, made in dialogue with the American Chestnut and the long shadow of what the region has lost. Ella Mahoney's Moshup's Hand sits at Rock House Reservation in West Brookfield, drawing on Wampanoag story and the stone itself. Posey Moulton's Second Wind stands at Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich, where wind and light off the water are part of the work. A companion Seasonal Gallery at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard brings the three practices into conversation with one another.

Working across four properties meant chasing weather, tides, and light on very different terrain, and letting each artist set the pace of their own story. The film leans on their voices rather than narration, which is how this kind of work tends to land hardest.

The Land Tells Our Stories is curated by Tess Lukey, Associate Curator of Native American Art, and organized by The Trustees with staff of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. It is commissioned by Art & the Landscape, now in its tenth year of siting artist commissions across Trustees places.