Present Tense
Documentary film + oral history + contemporary art + immersive exhibition
The West is often presented as something we inherited. Present Tense looks at the people deciding, right now, what of it gets carried forward and what has to change.
The West in the Making.
Present Tense is an ongoing documentary and art project exploring ag, ranching, food, science and working lands across the contemporary American West.
Through interviews, photography, film and fieldwork, the project follows people whose lives are connected to the land, but whose work is very much about the future.
It is less interested in preserving an image of the West than in asking what the West actually looks like now.
What is Present Tense?
•••••
The Stories
The project brings together people approaching the West from very different directions working within landscapes that are constantly changing. What connects them is not one definition of Western life. It is the fact that each of them is playing a part in what’s right now + what’s comes next.
Ranching + Working Lands
Tradition, succession, land stewardship and changing business models.
Food + Agriculture
The connection between what is grown, raised, made and eaten.
Science + Landscape
Migration, conservation and the future of working lands.
The fieldwork will culminate in a major immersive exhibition at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum in 2028, bringing together documentary film, photography, oral history, original artwork and environmental storytelling.
The project is also being developed for additional exhibitions and public programming throughout the region.
Where it’s going.
Alongside the exhibition, Present Tense is being developed as a short documentary film.
There is no host and no single narrator. The story is built from the people themselves, their work, their landscapes and the moments between what has been inherited and what is changing.
The film.
About the Artist
Bria Hammock is an award winning Wyoming-based contemporary Western artist, creative director + documentarian whose work explores place, landscape and the evolving identity of the American West.
Present Tense follows that practice into documentary fieldwork, oral history and filmmaking.
Present Tense is currently in production.
The project is supported in part through grant funding from the Wyoming Community Foundation and is actively seeking additional cultural, foundation and brand partners for documentary production and the 2028 exhibition.
