Renée Rhodes creates social sculptures, videos, books, gardens, and walks that explore geological empathy, mimicry, and the creation of place-based memory through somatic practices.

Rhodes’ work takes the form of sensory walks, books, participatory souvenir stands, and movement-centered performances for video. One such project engaged in tracing the source of the sea route of San Francisco's endangered sand—entangled and interrupted as it is with sand mining, concrete production, and the demands of the built environment. This project consisted of a book (Sand Story), videos (“Geopathic Tendencies”), and a traveling site-specific “Souvenir Stand.” This project and many others promote an embodied way to remember the slowness of the geological timescale and our home within it.

Rhodes participates in farming and ecological stewardship projects throughout the Bay Area. She is currently working on a collaborative meadow understory planting in an urban successional forest that has shifted from being a sand dune ecosystem to a mixed oak and eucalyptus woodland.

Rhodes was born in Largo, Florida, and is based in San Francisco, California.

reneearhodes.com