the sky is falling (too) looks to the future through the lens of America’s social and cultural Colonial past from the perspective of “this land was made for you and me”. (Note 1)

Posing the question if the response - to the coronavirus 19 pandemic (WHO March 11) in conjunction with climate change and remarkable protests for gender and racial justice - at the conclusion of stay-in-place mandates will lead somewhere new, that we don’t know what it looks like or a return to the past, hindering change.

“The Sky is Falling” is the central phrase in the folk tale "Chicken Little" aka “Henny Penny” selected by Sandrow as her title for a series of artworks intended to reveal the socio, cultural and ideological policies of the Bush Administration (2009) hand in hand with anti-science and conservative ideologues. Re-presented by many of those same players in the current administration (2016 - 2020) presided over by Trump that place in doubt life as we know it. Coupled with profound changes on Earth from human impact described as the “Anthropocene” that “intensified significantly since the onset of industrialization, taking us out of the Earth System state typical of the Holocene Epoch that post-dates the last glaciation.”

(Too) references the absence of meaningful actions by local, state, federal governments to address a myriad of pressing issues. Including an anti-science stance to rationalize not recognizing the equal rights of women (Note 2). Considering if this critical point in history presents an unique opportunity for new voices to emerge - free from the confines of colonialist minded gatekeepers. To somewhere new, unknown.

Sandrow proposes a reconsideration of our relationship to nature and the natural world as we follow the unfolding story of Shinnecock’s descendants in her “living” art installation. Illustrating the central premise of Michael Pollan’s seminal book The Botany of Desire “demonstrating how people and domesticated plants (and animals) have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship”.

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Note 1: a lyric excerpted from “This Land is Your Land” (1944) composed by Woody Guthrie. Married to Martha Graham dancer Marjorie Greenblatt, the daughter of renowned Yiddish troubadour Aliza Greenblatt considered Guthrie’s “Jewish” muse. A first cousin to Sandrow’s beloved grandfather Morris: Aliza memorialized their family history in poems, essays; following the spirit of generosity of her and Morris’s grandmother Rivele that  inspire, influence her art making and social practice.  Read more about early influences on Sandrow and her work...

Note 2:The ERA passed the Senate and was sent to State Legislatures for ratification in 1972 while Sandrow was in art school. This past January the 38th State (Virginia) adopted the law necessary for a constitutional amendment: but  now a joint resolution by Congress is required to extend the original time limit assigned to its passage.