The environment, climate change, and food and nutrition are all addressed in “Sustenance & Land: Five Artists Consider Our Relationship with the Earth” at the Elmhurst Art Museum, The exhibit opens Jan. 25 and runs through April 27. “We didn’t begin with, ‘Let’s do an environmentally-focused exhibition,’” admitted Liz Chilsen, curator of the exhibit. “It grew out of photographs that we have in our collection that we wanted to share.” Those images from Chicago photographers Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman opened a window on a larger theme. “We started to look at people who were doing artwork that related to land and landscape,” Chilsen said. “One thing led to the next. We built the exhibition based on the work that people were doing that had a relationship to how we regard the land.” Lochman, whose photos are featured prominently in the exhibit, said it highlights some uniquely American concepts. “Americans have always had a fascination with technology and production, and the land as our limitless resource,” Lochman said. “On the one hand, we’re creating this all new and improved food. In addition we’re consuming it as sort of an experiment in improving ourselves. We don’t give much thought to the consequences of our actions.” One of those new foods is the focus of “Fruit Loops Landscape” by the two photographers, in which pieces of that breakfast cereal are at the center of an outdoor scene in which the landscape picks up the colors of the Fruit Loops. “We’re shaping the land by what we’re growing,” Ciurej said. Lochman and Ciurej have been working together since 1976 to create their unique images. Ciurej said although they are photographers, their works are “constructive landscapes.” “We build the photographs,” Ciurej said. “We make something beyond reality.” Their inspiration is “usually something we’re disturbed about in the world,” Lochman said. “We haven’t run out of things to do.” “Baked Alaska” is one of photographers Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman’s “Recipes for Disaster.” That 68-page book is featured in the exhibit, “Sustenance & Land: Five Artists Consider our Relationship with the Earth,” opening Jan. 25 at the Elmhurst Art Museum. (Elmhurst Art Museum) Their portion of the exhibit, called, “Processed Views: Surveying the Industrial Landscape,”  includes ten photographs, 10 small sculptures related to the photos, and an installation centered around their book, “Recipes for Disaster.” The dangers of the climate crisis are detailed in that book. Included is a recipe for “Baked Alaska,” which features that dessert disintegrating in an arctic landscape. Ingredients listed include starving polar bears and beached whales. The directions include: “Preheat atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions.” “The idea of a recipe book that you pass down to the next generation seemed like an appropriate format,” Ciurej said, for detailing the climate crisis. Lochman added that the book helps explain the various facets of climate change. “I felt that the recipe book would break each of these problems down to a coherent single item that together make up threats to the climate,” she said. “We try to seduce the viewer with humor and something interesting to look at to bring them into something that’s actually much more serious than it seems,” Ciurej said. The other artists featured in the exhibit are Chunbo Zhang, Claire Pentecost, Tomiko Jones and Lydia Cheshewalla. Osage artist Cheshewalla is creating a multimedia installation. Cheshewalla said that when she was invited to participate in the exhibit, she checked the works of the other artists that were participating and saw a commonality. “We’re all thinking about similar things regarding how we treat the land or how the land treats us. How we rely on it,” Cheshewalla said. The artist said that the work she is preparing for this show is “storytelling, mostly in a visual sense through video of what led me into having this practice and how it looked different in different places. Before I moved to Chicago, I was doing land management in Lincoln, Nebraska, and working on a prairie restoration project there called ‘The Prairie Corridor.’” Exhibiting her work gives Cheshewalla a chance to share her message. “I’m talking about what does it look like to care about land and to think about land critically; to think about ecosystems critically,” she said. In addition, Cheshewalla will be showing materials that she has gathered from nature that she will arrange in patterns on the walls. Her exhibit will also include a sound piece that the artist is commissioning from local musician Jessica Price. A number of events are planned in conjunction with the exhibition. The Opening Reception will be from 6-9 p.m. on Jan. 24. Tickets are $23. An Artist Talk and Exhibition Walk-Through from 1-2:30 p.m. Feb. 8 is included with museum admission of $18 adults; $15 seniors; $10 students; and $5 children. On Feb. 14, 6-8 p.m., a contemporary Chicago-based dance troupe will be presented in “The Seldoms: An Evening of Dance Inspired by the Earth.” Tickets are $40. “Soil Reading with Ecologist Nance Klehm” will be presented from 2-4 p.m. on Feb. 22. The event is covered by museum admission. A hands-on workshop, “Create with Us: Landscape Collages” will be offered from 1-4 p.m. March 1. This event is included with museum admission. In celebration of National Poetry Month, visitors can listen to poetry and then write poems, guided by Elmhurst University professor Dr. Ann Frank Wake, during “Poetry Workshop: What Sustains Us,” 6 p.m. April 10. Tickets are $25. The final event is another hands-on class, “Create with Us: Mosaic Masterpieces,” 1-4 p.m. April 26. This event is covered by museum admission. The Elmhurst Art Museum is at 150 S. Cottage Hill Ave. in Elmhurst. Hours are noon-5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Sunday. More information is at 630-834-0202 or elmhurstartmuseum.org. Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.