A Collection of Recollections and Other Significant Detritus by Melissa Borman, & Terrestrial Transect by Areca Roe

Rosalux Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibitions A Collection of Recollections and Other Significant Detritus and Terrestrial Transect, new work by Melissa Borman and Areca Roe. The concurrent exhibitions bring together the artists’ shared interest in investigating our physical and emotional relationship to the natural world. Featuring constructed scenes and interventions within the landscape, works in the exhibition illustrate our culture’s conflicting desires to both preserve and control the natural world.

Melissa Borman is a Minneapolis based photographer and installation artist. Her work addresses the interconnected relationship embedded in using landscape elements as metaphors to depict our human stories and how these depictions shape our ideas of our surroundings. She is particularly interested in how the methods we use to share stories, from fairy tales to social media, impact our collective understanding of the natural world.

In the multimedia installation, A Collection of Recollections and Other Significant Detritus, Melissa revisits previously cast aside objects, images, and ideas from abandoned and unfinished projects spanning two decades of her creative practice. Drawing inspiration from film, poetry, literature, and the natural world, the Collection reflects on the artist’s ongoing endeavor to tackle deeply personal and vulnerable expressions of memory, grief, loss, and resilience.

Melissa has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Regional Cultural Center, Co. Donegal, Ireland, Galería Valid Foto BCN, Barcelona, Spain, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Macon, GA, Filter Space, Chicago, IL, and Griffin Museum, Boston. She is a recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Grant Next Step Grant, and Rochester Art Center’s Jerome Emerging Artist Award.


Areca Roe is an artist based in Mankato and Minneapolis, working primarily with photography and video. A recurrent theme in her work is the interface between the natural and human domains. More recently her work explores how biomes are being affected by climate change, and how humans make our marks on the landscape with our activities.

For Terrestrial Transect, Areca is presenting two new bodies of work, both inspired by her time as an artist-in-residence at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve.

One series consists of lenticular 3D photographs that highlight trees native to Minnesota, juxtaposed with human figures and floral fabric backgrounds. As biomes shift due to climate change, the locations these trees can survive is shifting as well. The portraits revere the trees themselves, but also refer to human interdependence on the natural world and desire to connect to the landscape.

The second piece consists of 360° video that Areca captured during her residency at Cedar Creek. In the video, figures use marking flags and tapes to interact with the landscape. These flags and tapes are used in research to mark transects on the land that are being sampled or studied. Here they are used almost ritualistically, in an incorrect and distorted manner.

Areca teaches photography and video art at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She received her MFA in Studio Arts, from University of Minnesota in 2011. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and she has been a member of Rosalux since 2015. Roe has also received several grants and fellowships in support of her work, including the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and the Art(ists) on the Verge Fellowship. Her work has been featured on sites such as Colossal, Slate, Juxtapoz, WIRED, and Fast Company, and in Der Spiegel Wissen magazine.


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