The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa Cleveland) opened its 2026 winter season on January 30 with four exhibitions examining humanity’s relationship to the natural world. The shows draw on Indigenous history, ecological crisis, the transatlantic slave trade, and climate-driven displacement, presenting what the museum describes as “a conversation about our relationship with and within nature, across time, memory, and responsibility.”

“Ohio Now: State of Nature” is a collaborative project between moCa Cleveland and Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center, bringing together 15 Ohio-based artists who work with materials drawn from lived experience to address sustainability, agriculture, food justice, and natural ecology. “Sky Hopinka: The Myth Is Now” presents film, photography, and text by Ho-Chunk/Luiseño artist Sky Hopinka, tracing Indigenous identity through language, memory, and myth. KING COBRA’s “When You Are Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” centers on a large-scale silicone sculpture of a bisected great white shark suspended inside a cage of fluorescent tubes — a memorial to Black Africans who perished or were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade.

The fourth exhibition, “Homing Instinct: Letting Go of the Shore,” is a 26-minute multi-screen science fiction film installation by filmmaker Lydia Dean Pilcher, based on a short story by writer Dani McClain. Set in a near-future shaped by rising sea levels, the film follows two friends forced to relocate from coastal regions, blending Afrofuturism and emotional realism. In connection with the film, Cleveland’s ThirdSpace Action Lab is activating a ground-floor reading room at the museum focused on science fiction and Afrofuturism.

All four exhibitions remain on view at moCa Cleveland, located in Cleveland’s University Circle neighborhood. Admission details and gallery hours are available through the museum.

Source: FreshWater Cleveland