Art 185LJ - Santa Cruz Island Art Probes was supposed to be an artistic exploration of Santa Cruz Island. Due to the pandemic, the students instead investigated the 'island' they found themselves isolated on at this unprecedented moment in time.

The word isolate is derived from Latin: insulatus "made into an island." While the places we hunkered up in might not have a geographical barrier such as a large body of water, mandates around travel and social distancing isolates us from friends and family, as well as strangers, and limit the geographical area we move freely within. This spring, we were all essentially on our own islands, we might have shared that island with a few others, and we might have made brief excursions to the 'mainland' to buy food and medicine, but the isolation was tangible.

The students 'island' might be the neighborhood where they live, or a place they drive to. Through working with their art projects, they explored their island's past, present and future: its natural and cultural history, its plants and animals, while processing the surreal reality of the spring of 2020.