Samantha Sethi

Work samples

To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.
Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.
Uncontainable Garden
Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights
dimensions variable
2024
Fossil Futures: 12.2.22 005; Toy, turtle

cast concrete, led, acrylic, paper, MDF
Entropic Irrigation System III

Entropic Irrigation System III was developed to support and manage the melting ice frozen in the form of five monuments including the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, a Mayan Temple, the Parthenon, and a Pyramid. As these ice monuments melt, the water drains through plastic tubing to water the fern growing beneath. Each monument displayed has three material versions; version one - frozen water, version 2 - sand mixed with water, version 3 - concrete (a combination of cement, sand and water). Each material is allowed to deteriorate undisturbed throughout the exhibition. The ferns selected for this system are native to the area and are able to manage flooding and prevent erosion.

About Samantha

Samantha Sethi is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores concepts of ephemerality, entropy, human impact on the environment, and our experience of time. Sethi earned her MFA from American University and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, CA; the Creative Alliance in Baltimore; the Washington Project for the Arts in Washington, D.C.;… more

View Samantha's Resume

To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.

Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers

2025

Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin

To See the Forest for the Trees (video documentation)

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.
Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.
Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography
To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.
Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography
To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.
Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography
To See the Forest for the Trees

This site-specific installation responds to the architecture of the Goucher College’s Bond Gallery and the surrounding landscape. The gallery space jutting out from the building is defined by three walls of windows, resembling a greenhouse. Using light to visualize the agency and communication of plants, trees grow through the ceiling surrounded by English Ivy vines threatening to take over.
Plants have the ability to relay information throughout their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate with other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated Maple trees and English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the gallery/greenhouse.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
Year: 2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography

Lucid Nature

This project uses light to visualize the agency and communication of plants.

Plants have an ability, only recently studied and not fully understood, to relay messages through their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate information to other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the greenhouse.

English Ivy is an ornamental plant that is recognized as invasive in the US. The greenhouse sets the stage for this deceptively demure plant gone wild.

Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers

Dimensions 10' x 30'

2025

Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin

Lucid Nature

This project uses light to visualize the agency and communication of plants.
Plants have an ability, only recently studied and not fully understood, to relay messages through their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate information to other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the greenhouse.
English Ivy is an ornamental plant that is recognized as invasive in the US. The greenhouse sets the stage for this deceptively demure plant gone wild.
Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Lucid Nature

This project uses light to visualize the agency and communication of plants.
Plants have an ability, only recently studied and not fully understood, to relay messages through their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate information to other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the greenhouse.
English Ivy is an ornamental plant that is recognized as invasive in the US. The greenhouse sets the stage for this deceptively demure plant gone wild.
Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography
Lucid Nature

This project uses light to visualize the agency and communication of plants.
Plants have an ability, only recently studied and not fully understood, to relay messages through their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate information to other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the greenhouse.
English Ivy is an ornamental plant that is recognized as invasive in the US. The greenhouse sets the stage for this deceptively demure plant gone wild.
Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography
Lucid Nature

This project uses light to visualize the agency and communication of plants.
Plants have an ability, only recently studied and not fully understood, to relay messages through their appendages using their vascular system in response to certain stimuli or threats much like our own nervous system. They are also able to communicate information to other plants, even other species, through root and mycorrhizal networks underground. Illuminated English Ivy vines model these systems through pulsating light patterns as they occupy the greenhouse.
English Ivy is an ornamental plant that is recognized as invasive in the US. The greenhouse sets the stage for this deceptively demure plant gone wild.
Media: Tyvek, Mylar, WLED lights, Microcontrollers
2025
Electrical systems assistance provided by Andy Holtin
Photo credit Side A Photography

Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.

Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights

Dimensions variable

2024

Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.
Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights
dimensions variable
2024
Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.
Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights
dimensions variable
2024
Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.
Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights
dimensions variable
2024
Photo credit Side A Photography
Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.
Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights
dimensions variable
2024
Uncontainable Garden

Uncontainable Garden is an installation of illuminated plastic boxes containing – or being overwhelmed by – various forms of plant life. These glowing silhouettes, illuminated by captured solar power, highlight plants with which we have complicated relationships, from houseplants growing in containers and endangered species to weeds and invasive plants. This project reimagines our relationship to plant life and considers our attempts to contain and control it. These plants refuse to be contained.
Uncontainable Garden
Solar panels, corrugated plastic, vinyl, LED lights
dimensions variable
2024

Fossil Futures

These works posit a future that can no longer distinguish between the source and the imitation. Calling on the form and format of the fossils we rely on to narrate the world before we were in it, Fossil Futures contemplates a time when our replicas and remnants are themselves ancient but newly discovered. As imperishable objects that have outlived their context, they are convenient substitutions for the building of new narratives as unreal as themselves.

Fossil Futures Installation Shot
Fossil Futures: 12.2.22 005; Toy, turtle

cast concrete, led, acrylic, paper, MDF
Fossil Futures: 12.2.22 005; Toy, turtle (detail)

cast concrete, led, acrylic, paper, MDF
Fossil Futures: 12.2.22 Plant, plastic, fern

cast concrete, led, acrylic, paper, MDF
Fossil Futures: Plant, branch, gold plastic

cast concrete, led, acrylic, paper, MDF

Object Impermanence

Object Impermanence is an ongoing site specific installation. When this installation is shown, a new painted tile is placed on the stand with ice on top at the beginning of each day for the duration of the exhibition. These hand painted acrylic tiles directly references tiles from an important site specific to the location of the exhibition . As the ice melts, water alters or washes away part of the painting. The tray below collects the water and the runoff from each event. A videocamera, installed above the stand displaying the painted tile and ice, records and projects a live feed of the action directly onto the exhibition space's floor at a scale approximately the size of the original site’s floor. Afterwards each tile is displayed on the wall with it’s predecessors. The viewer is invited to consider how they percieve the real physical representation in contrast with the enlarged mediated digital version in real time. For the project's most recent exhibition location, Washington, DC, the tiles are based on the floor tiles of the Library of Congress.

Object Impermanence (detail)

drawings on acrylic, gouache, ice, videocamera, MDF, live stream video projection on styrene, dimensions variable, 2019
Object Impermanence (detail)

drawings on acrylic, gouache, ice, videocamera, MDF, live stream video projection on styrene, dimensions variable, 2019
Object Impermanence (tiles)

drawings on acrylic, gouache, ice, videocamera, MDF, live stream video projection on styrene, dimensions variable, 2019
Object Impermanence (installation shot)

Entropic Irrigation System III

Entropic Irrigation System III was developed to support and manage the melting ice frozen in the form of five monuments including the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, a Mayan Temple, the Parthenon, and a Pyramid. As these ice monuments melt, the water drains through plastic tubing to water the fern growing beneath. Each monument displayed has three material versions; version one - frozen water, version 2 - sand mixed with water, version 3 - concrete (a combination of cement, sand and water). Each material is allowed to deteriorate undisturbed throughout the exhibition. The ferns selected for this system are native to the area and are able to manage flooding and prevent erosion.

Entropic Irrigation System III

Entropic Irrigation System III was developed to support and manage the melting ice frozen in the form of five monuments including the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, a Mayan Temple, the Parthenon, and a Pyramid. As these ice monuments melt, the water drains through plastic tubing to water the fern growing beneath. Each monument displayed has three material versions; version one - frozen water, version 2 - sand mixed with water, version 3 - concrete (a combination of cement, sand and water). Each material is allowed to deteriorate undisturbed throughout the exhibition. The ferns selected for this system are native to the area and are able to manage flooding and prevent erosion.
Entropic Irrigation System (Colosseum)
Entropic Irrigation System III (pyramid)

Counterweight

Counterweight, invites viewers to consider what is permanent. What are the artifacts we will leave behind? What happens to the lightweight, inconsequential objects we call disposable but are in fact as enduring as the things we intend to last? It is difficult to grasp the permanent nature of the temporary objects of convenience, many of which sustain our existence, but cost so little to produce that they are often given away. Once disposed of, these objects cease to exist in our minds, but they continue to exist somewhere else, somewhere out of sight. How do we reconcile their transience in our lives with their longevity in the world? This work seeks to understand these objects by transforming them, by seeing them in new terms -- perhaps in the way the rest of the natural world sees them, rather than how we do.

Counterweight

This exhibition,Counterweight, invites viewers to consider what is permanent. What are the artifacts we will leave behind? What happens to the lightweight, inconsequential objects we call disposable but are in fact as enduring as the things we intend to last? It is difficult to grasp the permanent nature of the temporary objects of convenience, many of which sustain our existence, but cost so little to produce that they are often given away. Once disposed of, these objects cease to exist in our minds, but they continue to exist somewhere else, somewhere out of sight. How do we reconcile their transience in our lives with their longevity in the world? This work seeks to understand these objects by transforming them, by seeing them in new terms -- perhaps in the way the rest of the natural world sees them, rather than how we do.
Concrete Necropolis

Concrete, MDF, reclaimed lumber, dimensions variable, 2019
Fossil Futures: 3.12.18. 005; Pendant, fish

Concrete,MDF, Acrylic, LEDs, dimensions variable, 2019
Counterweight exhibition

Disposable plastic containers documented as photogram cyanotypes.

Solar Power/ Solar System

Produced as a collaborative installation/system with Andy Holtin, Solar Power/Solar System is a project designed to explore our view of the natural world from within our built and technology-mediated environment. Far from being a simplistic

or exclusively critical view of this relationship, this project seeks to bring a piece of the
natural world back into our experience through some of the same tools and technology
that contribute to our distance from it.
The sunlight collected by the solar panels during the day is recycled to power the LEDs which illuminate the orbs and cast light strongly onto the back of the PVC panel, which has been drilled with a pattern of small holes to replicate the actual night sky of April 14, 2018, at 9:00pm, as would be seen from Baltimore, Maryland. Each hole or star is also fitted with a small segment of fiber optic cable to transmit the light from the back to the front of the panel more completely and increase visibility and luminosity of the star field. In a city of lights and power, the Solar
Power/Solar System imports the lost and subtle light of the stars, while, as a light emitting
installation in a festival of light installations, it also contributes to that loss.
Viewers are invited to stand, sit, or lay in the astroturf and gaze at the actual stars that would be visible if they were not hidden by our own network of lights that make city navigation possible.

Solar Power / Solar System

Produced as a collaborative installation with Andy Holtin, Solar Power/Solar System is a project designed to explore our view of the natural world from within our built and technology-mediated environment. Far from being a simplistic or exclusively critical view of this relationship, this project seeks to bring a piece of the natural world back into our experience through some of the same tools and technology that contribute to our distance from it. The sunlight collected by the solar panels during the day is recycled to power the LEDs which illuminate the orbs and cast light strongly onto the back of the PVC panel, which has been drilled with a pattern of small holes to replicate the actual night sky of April 14, 2018, at 9:00pm, as would be seen from Baltimore, Maryland. Each hole or star is also fitted with a small segment of fiber optic cable to transmit the light from the back to the front of the panel more completely and increase visibility and luminosity of the star field. In a city of lights and power, the Solar Power/Solar System imports the lost and subtle light of the stars, while, as a light emitting installation in a festival of light installations, it also contributes to that loss. Viewers are invited to stand, sit, or lay in the astroturf and gaze at the actual stars that would be visible if they were not hidden by our own network of lights that make city navigation possible.
Solar Power / Solar System (view from underneath)
Solar Power / Solar System video documentation

Produced as a collaborative installation with Andy Holtin, Solar Power/Solar System is a project designed to explore our view of the natural world from within our built and technology-mediated environment. Far from being a simplistic or exclusively critical view of this relationship, this project seeks to bring a piece of the natural world back into our experience through some of the same tools and technology that contribute to our distance from it. The sunlight collected by the solar panels during the day is recycled to power the LEDs which illuminate the orbs and cast light strongly onto the back of the PVC panel, which has been drilled with a pattern of small holes to replicate the actual night sky of April 14, 2018, at 9:00pm, as would be seen from Baltimore, Maryland. Each hole or star is also fitted with a small segment of fiber optic cable to transmit the light from the back to the front of the panel more completely and increase visibility and luminosity of the star field

Cast Offs

These small objects were produced as a rumination on the lives of materials, prompted by the artists' attempt to understand and reconcile the disparate frames of time in which objects and our experiences with them exist. The convenience-driven plastics that pass through our lives – though some facilitate levels of technology, sanitation, and hygiene that radically improve our lives – might be touched only once, but may persist in the world for hundreds of years. Similarly, the use of concrete, which enables the sheer scale of our civilizations through its strength and malleability, is slowly shrinking the coastlines of the continents on which we build. Both materials exist in unparalleled possibility and longevity, though our perceptions of them differ wildly. This work seeks to understand these objects and materials by transforming them, by seeing them in new terms—perhaps in the way the rest of the natural world sees them, rather than how we do.

Cast Off #4

Cast concrete, 2019
CastOff #10

cast concrete, mirrored acrylic, 2020
Cast Off #7

cast concrete, mirrored acrylic, 2020

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