What happens when the floodplain is allowed to function?
Fish return and flourish, ducks feed, a dynamic ecosystem repairs itself, and the Pacific Flyway inspires awe in anyone who looks up. In the Sacramento valley, where years of colonial intervention have disrupted the natural ecosystem, we drive over arid fields without second thought. What happens when we look out and see a community working to restore flooded paths forward?
[Placeholder: Flooding the Notch] documents a social practice art project led by Professor Eliza Gregory in collaboration with the 2026 Sacramento State photography Cohort.
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[Placeholder] is Eliza Gregory's ongoing project investigating individual and collective contemporary relationships to land. In this iteration, students explored the Yolo Bypass, centering their research on the Big Notch Project— a 30,000-acre floodplain habitat restoration plan and the largest floodplain restoration project in California history.
Guided by conservationist John Brennan and fish scientist Carson Jeffres, the student artists spent several field days across the Yolo Basin, learning about the extraordinary ecosystem, the work currently being done to restore it, and the human role in destroying, protecting, and caring for the land. Community dialogue, creative research, and photographic-based work became the students' tools for processing what they learned and telling the story of their experience.
This short film, made by Jon Wong and Andrés Lira, accompanies the students' work, inviting viewers to experience how artmaking can be an important way of learning and engaging with community, and how sharing that art can encourage others to reconsider their own relationship to the land around them.
Directed by Eliza Gregory
Cinematography by Jonathan Wong
Music by Andrew Barkan
Edited by Andrés Lira
Student Artists: Ruben Aguilar, Kadence Armstrong, Livia Balistreri, Thomas Barr, Mario Bedoy, Anna Beers, Analy Carrillo, Takaki Clark, Alexandria Contreras, Alejandra Abrica-Garcia, Angelina LaVancha, Brittany Little, Gabriel Luukkonen, Jasmin Munoz, Christian Navarro, Dolores Navarro, Rachel O’Brien, Meli Rodas, Jeremy Rommelfanger, Thelma Salomon-Saldívar, Eleni Sanchez, Amanda “AJ” Tinkess, Montserrat Valencia, William Vannucci, Beatriz Vargas
Thumbnail photograph taken by Thelma Salomon-Saldívar.
