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Past

Home Land Security

September 10 – December 18, 2016 at Fort Winfield Scott at Langdon Court

Occupying a suite of former military structures in the Presidio overlooking the San Francisco Bay, Home Land Security brought together works by contemporary artists and collectives from around the globe to reflect on the human dimensions and increasing complexity of national security, including the physical and psychological borders we create, protect, and cross in its name. 

The exhibition extended FOR-SITE’s focus on provocative art about place, inviting viewers into decommissioned batteries, an administrative building, and a chapel — some open to the public for the first time — that served for decades as key sites in the US Army’s Coastal Defense System. The 18 featured artists represented diverse points of origin — including China, Cuba, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Syria, the United States, and Vietnam — underscoring the universality of themes of home, safety, and defense in an increasingly pervasive climate of fear and distrust. The artworks, which encompassed media ranging from painting and sculpture to video and performance, responded to both personal and cultural concerns, with the historic sites of Fort Winfield Scott providing a new context for signature pieces and a showcase for site-specific commissions.

Home Land Security built on previous artistic collaborations with the National Park Service, the Presidio Trust, and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and commemorated the park service’s centennial.

PDFs of the exhibition brochure are available in English, Chinese, and Spanish.

A PDF of the Home Land Security final report is available here. 

More

Additional Information

  • Getting There
  • FAQs
  • Volunteer
  • School & Community Groups

Featured Works

  • Shiva AhmadiLotus and Knot
  • Tammam AzzamThree works from the Storeys series
  • Tirtzah BasselConcourse
  • DĂ­az Lewis34,000 Pillows
  • Yashar Azar EmdadianDisintegration
  • Al FarrowRevelation I and Mosque III (after National Mosque of Nigeria, Abuja)
  • Liza LouBarricade and Conditions of Capture
  • Mandana MoghaddamExodus
  • Trevor PaglenOperation Onymous (FBI Investigation of the Silk Road) and Code Names of the Surveillance State
  • Shahpour PouyanFive works from the Projectiles series
  • Michele PredEncirclement
  • The Propeller GroupAK-47 vs M16
  • Luz MarĂ­a Sánchez2487
  • Do Ho SuhSome/One
  • Bill ViolaFour works from the Martyrs series
  • Alexia WebsterBulengo Studios, from the Refugee Street Studio Project
  • Krzysztof WodiczkoVeterans' Flame
  • Yin XiuzhenWeapon

Related Media

  • Intro Video
  • Twelve-inch rifle and crew; courtesy National Park Service Archives
    Fort Scott Chapel, c. 1942; courtesy National Park Service Archives
    Test firing guns at Battery Godfrey; courtesy National Park Service Archives
    Firing gun at Battery Marcus Miller; courtesy National Park Service Archives
    Military reserves drill at Fort Winfield Scott; courtesy National Park Service Archives
    Soldiers evaluating aerial photographs; courtesy National Park Service Archives
    Historical Images
  • In the Press
  • Home Land Security 3D scans
Home Land Security was organized by the FOR-SITE Foundation in partnership with the National Park Service, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the Presidio Trust.

FOR-SITE Foundation project team: Cheryl Haines, executive director and exhibition curator; Jackie von Treskow, program director and assistant curator; Alison Konecki, communications and development manager; Miegan Riddle, development consultant; Jennifer Burke/Industry, visual design; Anne Ray, writer and editor; Tyler Reed, art guide manager; Jan StĂĽrmann, video production; Ari Salomon, web developer

Projects

  • Overview
  • On View
  • Past
    • Lands End
    • Sanctuary
    • Home Land Security
      • Shiva Ahmadi
      • Tammam Azzam
      • Tirtzah Bassel
      • DĂ­az Lewis
      • Yashar Azar Emdadian
      • Al Farrow
      • Liza Lou
      • Mandana Moghaddam
      • Trevor Paglen
      • Shahpour Pouyan
      • Michele Pred
      • The Propeller Group
      • Luz MarĂ­a Sánchez
      • Do Ho Suh
      • Bill Viola
      • Alexia Webster
      • Krzysztof Wodiczko
      • Yin Xiuzhen
    • @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz
    • Art About Place: FOR-SITE Foundation at the Presidio
    • International Orange
    • Presidio Habitats
    • The Marvelous Museum: A Mark Dion Project
    • Pae White: In Between the Outside-In
    • Chris Drury: Mushrooms | Clouds
    • Shi Guorui: Reproduction and Refashioning
    • Richard Long: The Path Is the Place Is the Line
    • New Work by Cornelia Parker
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Artist Programs

Field Notes

  • Alfredo Jaar

    Black Lives Matter

  • AWW_HRW

    Ai Weiwei + Human Rights Watch

  • Allison Smith, Pendleton blanket

    Web Shop Highlight: Allison Smith

Artist Editions

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Facebook

For-Site Foundation

Twitter

  • #LandsEnd featured artist Andrea Chung’s video Come Back to Jamaica (2009), & Come Back to Yourself (2013), will be… https://t.co/HXwouRNnBa
  • FOR-SITE is thrilled to partner with local chefs & mixologists in hosting small, safe cocktail parties & suppers on… https://t.co/q1lElox0gx

Instagram

FOR-SITE collaborator @hankwillisthomas & artist @wideawakes designed  #EyesonIran flying billboards in solidarity with the women of Iran. 

The billboards can be seen this week on South beach, Miami and at @untitledartfair 

@forfreedoms multi-day, multi-media art installation spans Miami and artworks throughout @4freedomspark in NYC
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FOR-SITE collaborator @hankwillisthomas & artist @wideawakes designed #EyesonIran flying billboards in solidarity with the women of Iran. The billboards can be seen this week on South beach, Miami and at @untitledartfair @forfreedoms multi-day, multi-media art installation spans Miami and artworks throughout @4freedomspark in NYC
2 months ago
View on Instagram |
1/9
This #GivingTuesday we want to celebrate and honor YOU and the other partners and supporters who have buoyed our wildest dreams. Access to all of our exhibition sites these past years—from the former Cliff House to Alcatraz to military batteries and churches—was gifted to us from our park partners. The 110 artists with whom we have worked blew us away with breathtaking, career-defining work, often under short order. FOR-SITE simply would not exist without the well of generosity and cooperation that is our friends, and we intend to express our gratitude this year. 

You can continue to support FOR-SITE by donating today at the link in bio.
•
Follow
This #GivingTuesday we want to celebrate and honor YOU and the other partners and supporters who have buoyed our wildest dreams. Access to all of our exhibition sites these past years—from the former Cliff House to Alcatraz to military batteries and churches—was gifted to us from our park partners. The 110 artists with whom we have worked blew us away with breathtaking, career-defining work, often under short order. FOR-SITE simply would not exist without the well of generosity and cooperation that is our friends, and we intend to express our gratitude this year. You can continue to support FOR-SITE by donating today at the link in bio.
2 months ago
View on Instagram |
2/9
The participating artists of FOR-SITE’s 2018 exhibition SANCTUARY, represented diverse ideologies and backgrounds (many including experiences as migrants and refugees), but their contributions to the exhibition—spectacularly varied in content and design—conformed to a single format, lending a unifying element that bridged racial, cultural, and religious differences. Installed on the floor of the historic Fort Mason Chapel, the four-by-six-foot wool rugs—woven in Lahore, Pakistan, using traditional materials and hand-knotting techniques—called to mind traditional prayer rugs, but they transcended religious connotations, encompassing thoughtful viewpoints on cultural identity, sense of place, and belonging.

Photo by @robertdiversherrick
•
Follow
The participating artists of FOR-SITE’s 2018 exhibition SANCTUARY, represented diverse ideologies and backgrounds (many including experiences as migrants and refugees), but their contributions to the exhibition—spectacularly varied in content and design—conformed to a single format, lending a unifying element that bridged racial, cultural, and religious differences. Installed on the floor of the historic Fort Mason Chapel, the four-by-six-foot wool rugs—woven in Lahore, Pakistan, using traditional materials and hand-knotting techniques—called to mind traditional prayer rugs, but they transcended religious connotations, encompassing thoughtful viewpoints on cultural identity, sense of place, and belonging. Photo by @robertdiversherrick
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
3/9
#LandsEnd featured artist @suzannehusky has explored interactions among humans, animals, and plants through a multifaceted art practice that includes sculpture, installation, photography, and film for the last 20 years. 

Husky sculpts her trees from used clothes and found textiles, translating our cast-off clothing—informed by age and gender, class, culture, and politics—to the individualizing characteristics of trees, suggesting the deep interconnectedness of humans and their natural surroundings. “Forest” is both an homage to an ecological system that supports countless plant and animal species and a memorial to that same system under threat of erasure. #artaboutplace
•
Follow
#LandsEnd featured artist @suzannehusky has explored interactions among humans, animals, and plants through a multifaceted art practice that includes sculpture, installation, photography, and film for the last 20 years. Husky sculpts her trees from used clothes and found textiles, translating our cast-off clothing—informed by age and gender, class, culture, and politics—to the individualizing characteristics of trees, suggesting the deep interconnectedness of humans and their natural surroundings. “Forest” is both an homage to an ecological system that supports countless plant and animal species and a memorial to that same system under threat of erasure. #artaboutplace
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
4/9
#LandsEnd featured artist @danielbeltraphoto’s striking, large-scale aerial photographs of melting polar ice caps and oil spills highlight the rate and scale at which humanity is impacting our world. His juxtapositions of nature and destruction provide an almost overwhelming sense of physical scale and emotional dread, through flattened but dynamic images that flirt with abstraction.
•
Follow
#LandsEnd featured artist @danielbeltraphoto’s striking, large-scale aerial photographs of melting polar ice caps and oil spills highlight the rate and scale at which humanity is impacting our world. His juxtapositions of nature and destruction provide an almost overwhelming sense of physical scale and emotional dread, through flattened but dynamic images that flirt with abstraction.
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
5/9
FOR-SITE turns 20 in 2023! We feel extremely grateful to all of you, the artists, and to our long-standing park partners, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy (@parksconservancy), the Presidio Trust (@presidiosf), and the @nationalparkservice, for such outstanding companionship and support of our work.

Stay tuned! The celebrations begin next month, in December, followed by a milestone anniversary year punctuated by programs and events, and a to-be-announced biennial exhibition open to the public.

In the meantime, you may have noticed we changed our name and branding, with our new website coming soon. The FOR-SITE Foundation is now FOR-SITE, yet we remain dedicated to the creation, understanding, and presentation of art about place.

We look forward to celebrating with you this next year!
•
Follow
FOR-SITE turns 20 in 2023! We feel extremely grateful to all of you, the artists, and to our long-standing park partners, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy (@parksconservancy), the Presidio Trust (@presidiosf), and the @nationalparkservice, for such outstanding companionship and support of our work. Stay tuned! The celebrations begin next month, in December, followed by a milestone anniversary year punctuated by programs and events, and a to-be-announced biennial exhibition open to the public. In the meantime, you may have noticed we changed our name and branding, with our new website coming soon. The FOR-SITE Foundation is now FOR-SITE, yet we remain dedicated to the creation, understanding, and presentation of art about place. We look forward to celebrating with you this next year!
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
6/9
Election Day has arrived! VOTE for the planet and the future you want to see in the world 🌍🌊 🗳️
•
Follow
Election Day has arrived! VOTE for the planet and the future you want to see in the world 🌍🌊 🗳️
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
7/9
@anateresafernandez talking sea bodies and On the Horizon on @kqed live. #LandsEnd
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@anateresafernandez talking sea bodies and On the Horizon on @kqed live. #LandsEnd
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
8/9
“The response among members of the visual arts community in the Bay Area was swift and certain: The Times story, a consensus of those who spoke with The Chronicle said, does not represent the region accurately, and they do not see a local decline.

The most common criticism of the Times’ reporting was that San Francisco should not be viewed through the lens of an art market, but rather as a larger arts community consisting of many public and private institutions as well as independent artists, arts workers and patrons.” - @tonybravosf 

@anateresafernandez “On the Horizon” at #FORSITE’s #LandsEnd exhibition featured  in @tonybravosf “S.F.’s art scene, disparaged by the New York Times, pushes back” for @sfchronicle_datebook
•
Follow
“The response among members of the visual arts community in the Bay Area was swift and certain: The Times story, a consensus of those who spoke with The Chronicle said, does not represent the region accurately, and they do not see a local decline. The most common criticism of the Times’ reporting was that San Francisco should not be viewed through the lens of an art market, but rather as a larger arts community consisting of many public and private institutions as well as independent artists, arts workers and patrons.” - @tonybravosf @anateresafernandez “On the Horizon” at #FORSITE’s #LandsEnd exhibition featured in @tonybravosf “S.F.’s art scene, disparaged by the New York Times, pushes back” for @sfchronicle_datebook
3 months ago
View on Instagram |
9/9

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