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The Ecogeoglyphic Observatory

The Ecogeoglyphic Observatory (fondly referred to as the “EGG”) is a project that explores historic and present-day development in the region surrounding Boise, Idaho, and the effects that these processes have over the plants, animals, water, stone, soil and people who exist here.

We are artists, scientists, poets, researchers, historians, parents, renters, queers, athletes, writers, gardeners, neighbors, and friends who work together to ask questions that refract through the lens of “the EGG.” Since 2022, the Field Workers of the EGG Observatory meet semi-regularly; we visit sites, share our concerns, and support each other in our efforts to explore, understand, and work within expanding fields of inquiry.

We share our work several times yearly through exhibitions, field studies, workshops, and readings all open to the public. Our 2024-2025 process concluded with the exhibition and public process RIPAIRA.

Ecogeoglyphic is a neologism. It breaks down into three parts:

Eco - ecology - from oikos, Ancient Greek for house/home. Invoking our home place.

Geo - earth - from gê, Ancient Greek for earth. Invoking the material earth.

Glyphic - carve - from glyphē, Greek for carve/hollow/engrave. Invoking the act of writing, of carving into stone.

Our lines erase their webs

Ecogeoglyphic is a new term for thinking about suburban and industrial development. It implies writing in and over ecologies and geologies, using a certain language that is familiar to us all- suburban sprawl. Through platting the earth for development, and the process of digging out the foundations for an explosion of it in the Boise Valley, companies have been inscribing the earth with their logic. What does this logic express about the priorities of human life in our present time? As new homes and industrial facilities appear, covering the earth with gridded subdivision lines, natural ecosystem relations are dispersed, modified, and/or erased.

If given the choice to explore different options, what traces would we leave on the face of the living earth?

Can our lived processes support + integrate holistically into living sysems?

What can we shed and what must we retain in order to alter the effects of our systems for living?

‘Hiking in the Foothills, 09/2022', Teal Gardner, 2022.

‘^{Threat of a Greater Threat’, Teal Gardner, 2022.}

'Hackberry Overlook' Teal Gardner, 2022.

Compilation of stills from ‘Tesoro,’ Ryan Simmons, 2023.

A writing workshop writer, 2025.

Still from from ‘Dialogues,’ Teal Gardner + Cydney Covert, 2025.

We thank MING Studios and the City of Boise Department of Arts and History for all of their support!

Email us: eggobservatory(at)gmail(dot)com
Instagram: ecogeoglyphic.observatory
All work on this site is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 Creative Commons License.

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