Longtime coworkers and friends Brittanie Bondie and Megan Major opened their joint show, “Abstracting the Anthropocene: An Ecological Elegy” to a lively reception on Sept. 5, 2025 in Riverside Arts Center’s North Gallery.
The collaborative show is an exploration of the human relationship to nature through abstract photography and alternative image-making.
Bondie and Major met through their work at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where the pair work with gallery collections. They soon discovered an alignment between their artistic aesthetics.
“A lot of her work is abstract and a lot of my work is abstract, so it was like ‘why don’t we try to do a show together?’” Bondie said.
Bondie’s work incorporates bodies of water both as a subject and step in the creation project. Inspiration from her own experience living near the Huron River, where she spends summers wading in the water with her son.
When a chemical spill caused a temporary closure of the river, Bondie personally noticed the effects of climate change in her community.
“When that ritual was interrupted, I really started to consider my relationship with water,” Bondie said.
Bondie examined four rivers across Southeastern Michigan: the Rouge, Raisin, Flint and Detroit.
Major’s work interrogates the relationship between humans and the environment. Her photos capture places around the world, including the University of Arizona research facility known as Biosphere 2.
“It was from the outside looking in,” Major said. “The farther down the line, the more opaque the windows became with the growth that was on them.”
Bondie and Major are trained photographers and have had their work exhibited across the country.
“Abstracting the Anthropocene: An Ecological Elegy” will be on display until Oct. 5, 2025. Open gallery hours are Fridays noon to 4 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with more to be announced on Riverside Arts Center’s social media and website.
To learn more about the show and Bondie and Major as artists, visit riversidearts.org.
