Laboratory for the Future Exhibit

“Laboratory for the Future” is the culminating exhibit of Debra Scacco’s tenure as first Artist in Residence at City Yards with the city’s Public Works divisions of Water and Resource Recovery & Recycling. During her two years of research and creative exploration, she researched, illuminated, and celebrated the often-unseen labor that sustains Santa Monica and the natural and created systems of the city and region. During her residency she made visits to well sites and sanitation stations, worked with staff to create GIS interpretations of the city’s water pathways, created new sculptures from Santa Monica well excavation clay and Pacific Ocean driftwood, and researched compost and waste streams and their far-reaching effects on people and planet. The exhibit also features Scacco’s “We Are Essential” portrait campaign (photography by Monica Orozco) and other images from her research on invisible infrastructural systems. Experience how art, science, and civic engagement intersect in this unique exploration of water, waste and urban ecology!

Interdisciplinary artist Debra Scacco investigates the ecological and cultural consequences of human activity. Fusing rigorous research with personal narrative, her work maps the histories of land, water, and the beings transformed by human intervention. She is the inaugural artist-in-residence at the city of Santa Monica Public Works (2023–25) and the first artist-in-residence at the Ellis Island Museum (2012). Scacco co-founded the Getty PST ART Climate Impact Program (2022–25) and founded the climate-focused residency Air Projects (2016–20). Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of Los Angeles, and the Durfee Foundation, featured in Art in America and the Los Angeles Times, and exhibited and collected internationally. https://www.debrascacco.com

Laboratory for the Future is a project of City Yards Artist in Residence Debra Scacco and is made possible by the city of Santa Monica Recreation and Arts Department Cultural Affairs Division, Public Works Department, and Percent for Art program. More about the project here.