Curatorial / Juror Reflection
Leah Dalton

Bodies and Borders: Ecologies of Consent began as part of my curatorial vision within Women Eco Artists Dialog (WEAD), where I serve on the board and curatorial committee. Rooted in ongoing WEAD conversations around ecology, consent, and the permeability of borders, this exhibition was conceived as a platform to explore the ways bodies, environments, and systems regulate what is allowed in and what is kept out. To shape this exhibition fully, we invited Beverly Naidus to join me as co-juror, knowing her long practice of weaving art and activism would bring depth and resonance to the process.

The framework takes inspiration from Elvia Wilk, who observes that “the achievement of health is premised on the ability to control what enters and exits the body’s borders,” and from Kim TallBear, who reminds us that “whether one is speaking of relating well with humans or nonhumans…we are talking about sustaining one another.” These ideas situate consent not only as personal but as ecological and collective.

The artists gathered here expand these urgencies into diverse forms, through intimate explorations of the body, responses to ecological collapse, and acts of repair and regeneration. What has emerged is a constellation of works that resist static boundaries, holding critique, care, and vulnerability side by side. It has been an honor to develop this exhibition with WEAD, to collaborate with Beverly Naidus in jurying the work, and to hold space for voices that invite us to reconsider what it means to inhabit bodies and ecologies with consent.