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Meghann Riepenhoff:
State ShiftJanuary 22 – March 15, 2025
Haines proudly presents State Shift, our second solo exhibition with Meghann Riepenhoff. Poetic, visceral, and personal, the exhibition debuts a new body of work that expands Riepenhoff’s collaboration with both the cyanotype and the environment. -
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The title State Shift, which names both the exhibition and Riepenhoff’s latest body of work, is a geological term describing dramatic and sudden changes to ecosystems — often when critical thresholds are crossed. The artist personally experienced one form of this catalyzing phenomenon in early 2024, when an extreme weather event caused extensive damage to her Pacific Northwest home. State Shift is an ongoing body of work created during this time of displacement, which the artist used as an opportunity to explore national sites highly compromised by human intervention — locations with “compelling stories of human error, climate entanglement, and chaos.”
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“What we’ve experienced is not unique to us. Perhaps we are a warning sign for people who are yet to be impacted by climate events. Perhaps we are a reminder that millions are already impacted, and there’s more to come. The problem is not just with our house, it is with our collective house that we call earth.”
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These include Miami Beach, FL, considered a “ground zero” of the climate crisis, barraged by recurring storms and threatened by rising sea levels; Maui, HI, where the devastating Lahaina fire destroyed over 2,000 structures, and killed 102 people in August 2023; and the former town of Moncton, WA, which was completely submerged in 1915 when an ill-advised dam was constructed to provide Seattle with power and water.
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Meghann RiepenhoffDay 259.2: Waters of the Americas: Florida Department of Environmental Protection #8092, 2024Unique Dynamic Cyanotype34 x 46 inches, framedSold
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Meghann RiepenhoffDay 231: Waters of Oceania: FEMA-4724-DR (Ecological Succession Day Three Hundred Sixty-Nine, Maui, HI), 2024Unique Dynamic Cyanotype34 x 46 inches, framedSold
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“I see Moncton as a cautionary tale for us all — perhaps more relevant now than ever, as climate change impacts become more ubiquitous. For me personally, given that we lost our home in a climate event, I feel an increased urgency to make work in this vein.”
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Days 45-47: mushroom ink + Prussian Blue pigment + lake water + snow + evaporation, 2024
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For Riepenhoff, the physical nature of her work, where photography-based media come in contact with rain, waves, wind, and wintry environments, is a call to be in closer contact with our environment, in a time of deep separation between humans and our ecosystems. In issuing this call — both to herself and to viewers — the artist invites us all to consider the personal and collective shifts we might make to preserve our shared home.
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“I see hope and devastation, or beauty and difficulty, as nearly always occurring simultaneously. I experience art making as a kind of pressure chamber where carbon can turn to diamonds, but not without tremendous effort and care and difficulty and collaboration and time.”
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State Shift coincides with Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene, a major group exhibition on view at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University on February 26 to August 3, 2025 that features Riepenhoff's work. Originating at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, Second Nature will travel to the Anchorage Museum, AK following its presentation at the Cantor.
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Installation views of Meghann Riepenhoff: State Shift at Haines Gallery, San Francisco; photos: Robert Divers HerrickMeghann Riepenhoff creating her work in Maui, HI; Miami Beach, FL; Rattlesnake Lake (formerly Moncton), WA; photos courtesy the artistOpening Reception of State Shift on Friday, January 24, 2025; photos: Hope C Lundblad
