Art Activation: Equinox in the Meadow | Helena Westra: Lying Fallow | Athenaeum Art Center in Logan Heights (September 20)

Saturday, September 20, 2025
5–8 PM
CATHERINE AND ROBERT PALMER GALLERY

HELENA WESTRA: Lying Fallow
On view: August 9–Ocotber 25, 2025
Celebrate the Autumnal Equinox at the Athenaeum Art Center with an evening honoring the turning of the seasons.

Gather in the gallery amidst Lying Fallow, Helena Westra’s immersive indoor meadow, for an artist talk, poetry readings, and an experimental sound bath by musician Daniel Henderson. Seasonal refreshments will be served. Send off the summer in the company of art, nature, and community.

Admission is free, and all are welcome.

Lying Fallow is a golden meadow brought indoors and an invitation to rest. In this installation of hand-gathered California grasses, artist Helena Westra creates a space shaped by slowness, reflection, and return. The title comes from the agricultural term “lying fallow,” used when a field is left unplanted for a season so the soil can restore its strength. For Westra, this idea becomes a metaphor for creative and personal renewal.

Westra’s installation draws from her own search for balance in a world that constantly demands effort and productivity. Elevated here instead is her deep reverence for the land, a connection between the cycles of her own body and the seasons, and the quiet, in-between moments we often overlook. This exhibition straddles late summer into fall, inviting visitors into a space that feels both grounded and dreamlike, where time slows down and the border between the external world and the inner self begins to blur.

This is a show about pausing. About listening. About what can only grow after a period of stillness. Lying Fallow offers a soft-landing place for memory, for imagination, and for whatever may come next.

Lying Fallow es una pradera dorada llevada al interior y una invitación al descanso. En esta instalación de hierbas de California recogidas a mano, la artista Helena Westra crea un espacio moldeado por la lentitud, la reflexión y el retorno. El título procede del término agrícola “lying fallow”, utilizado cuando se deja un campo sin plantar durante una temporada para que el suelo recupere su fuerza. Para Westra, esta idea se convierte en una metáfora de la renovación creativa y personal.

La instalación de Westra se inspira en su propia búsqueda de equilibrio en un mundo que exige constantemente esfuerzo y productividad. En cambio, aquí se eleva su profunda reverencia por la tierra, una conexión entre los ciclos de su propio cuerpo y las estaciones, y los momentos entre cosas que muchas veces no notamos. Esta exposición, a medio camino entre el final del verano y el otoño, invita a los visitantes a un espacio que se siente a la vez conectado a la tierra y onírico, donde el tiempo se ralentiza y la frontera entre el mundo exterior y el interior empieza a difuminarse.

Es una exposición sobre la pausa. Sobre escuchar. Sobre lo que sólo puede crecer tras un periodo de quietud. Lying Fallow ofrece un lugar de aterrizaje suave para la memoria, para la imaginación y para lo que pueda venir después.

The exhibition can be viewed in the Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery at the Athenaeum Art Center (1955 Julian Avenue, San Diego, CA 92113) during open gallery hours, Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and every second Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m., during the Barrio Art Crawl, and by appointment.