Bad Outdoorsmen reconsiders our conception of nature and wilderness


The multimedia exhibit will show at Crisp-Ellert Art Museum in St. Augustine, Florida from January 20-April 19, 2025

Published February 5th 2025

To think of the outdoors and wilderness is to likely think of the vast, expansive backcountry or rolling, steep hills of wildflowers; craggy mountains, or enormous tree trunks with a sky-high canopy. When we think of nature, we often think of landscapes void of human encampment or impact – uninhabited, undisturbed – the world's natural condition. When we think of an outdoorsman, we might think of a masculine, rugged man, layered in gear – often a white man. It’s these ideas of the wild that have consumed artists and educators Meredith Laura Lynn and Katie Hargrave, who have been collaborating since 2018. While the pair work independently as teachers and artists, maintaining their individual studio practices, their project-based collaborative practice is grounded in the idea of so-called “public lands” and the problematic ways the outdoors and outdoorsmen are represented historically and culturally, often under the filter of western expansion and colonialism. It’s those representations they call into question, often satirically, that ask us to examine our collective conception of land and wilderness. Lynn and Hargrave’s latest exhibit, Bad Outdoorsmen, begs us to consider how our depictions of nature and wilderness are impacted by manifest destiny and consumerism.

Katie Hargrave and Meredith Laura Lynn met in graduate school at the University of Iowa in 2010, where they earned their MFAs together. In 2017, they attended the Signal Fire Residency in Oregon, immersing themselves in nature in order to reconsider ideas of land stewardship, ecological issues, and human impact on the environment. Their time in the remote wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and time spent driving back east was monumental in inspiring their collaborative work. On their traverse eastward, they stopped in public lands, mainly National Parks, speaking to park rangers and viewing the land from a more objective lens. They thought more critically about how land is preserved, shared, and communicated, and how our beliefs about land and wilderness are influenced through a very specific telling of history – white men’s stories and photography. “In the process of that drive, we learned that we just had all of these overlaps in the ways that we were approaching space, thinking about land, and interrogating the histories that are contained in these spaces, and questioning the way those histories are interpreted,” shared Meredith Laura Lynn in an interview with Dovetail magazine in 2023. They also considered the literal vehicles and accouterments we use to explore nature, like RVs, tents, campers, and pretty much anything sold at REI – much of it separating people from experiencing the outdoors with an aim to provide comfort. And of course, in today’s world, it doesn’t stop there – tourists then must thoroughly document their excursions.

Since their cross-country adventure in 2018, Lynn and Hargrave have continued traveling all over the United States, spending time in remote areas and designated public lands. They’re avid researchers of the places they encounter, diving deep into historical and cultural contexts and texts, as well as researching and reading texts by influential environmentalists. The two pour over outdoor literature, landscape photography, advertisements, found images, tourist images, and social media images. They often collapse these many forms and sources into one body of work and manipulate materials used when exploring the outdoors, like tents and coolers, along with postcards, texts, fabric, video, and photographic imagery. Because they don't live in the same place (Lynn is based in Tallahassee, FL, and Hargrave in Chattanooga, TN), they are constantly sending materials back and forth to one another, before coming together again to make decisions and put everything in place. 

Their work is a reimagining of the outdoors, a sculptural installation of objects in a gallery to be interacted and share a space with. Rather than something two-dimensional, lends to a more abstract, separate, and intellectual experience. The exhibits Lynn and Hargrave create are an interactive, contemplative experience, exactly what Bad Outdoorsmen does in its latest iteration, on display at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum (CEAM) in St. Augustine, Florida from January 20, 2025, through April 19, 2025. “Bad Outdoorsmen chronicles the failures and difficulties of men in the wilderness and contextualizes their legacies in contemporary pop culture representations of the outdoors, particularly reality survivalist television shows,” shared CEAM interim director Helena Rodriguez. The men Lynn and Hargrave center on are famous historical conservationists and the reality show they mock is the History Channel’s Alone franchise, which features 10 contestants battling the extreme wilderness, all alone, for a $500,000 prize. 


Bad Outdoorsmen. Courtesy of the artists.

In Bad Outdoorsmen, and in previous projects, Lynn and Hargrave interrogate the legacy of John Muir (1892–1914), a naturalist who was a founding member of the Sierra Club and who is often referred to as the "Father of the National Parks." His posthumous publication Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf,  in which he walks from Indiana to Florida, has been a fountain of inspiration for Lynn and Hargrave. John Muir, while an important figure in American conservation and the establishment of public land, was also deeply racist, classist, and entitled. Throughout his life, he practiced negative views and actions toward Indigenous Peoples and Black Americans, and he, along with other founding members of the Sierra Club, ensured their club, conservation efforts, and access to the outdoorsmen lifestyle were reserved for white men only. It’s no wonder that the established idea of an outdoorsman, one that is heavily romanticized culturally, is that of a masculine, egotistical white man. 


Excerpts from “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf" by John Muir in Bad Outdoorsmen. Courtesy of the artists.

Muir and other famous conservationists and environmentalists have created an exclusionary and one-sided version of the outdoors. Lynn and Hargrave feature themselves in their installations as a way to integrate themselves into the wilderness – rewriting the narrative on who can be an outdoorsman. We often like to think of these public lands and places as preserving their original format, but in order to experience them like this, we also removed the lands’ peoples and past. And while creating National Parks keeps land in its natural glory, it also erases the Indigenous Peoples whose land it is, or was. In a piece about Bad Outdoorsman, published on Grizzly Grizzly, writer Brittany Clottey states how “Artists like [Ansel] Adams functioned much like John Muir, both depicting American landscapes as empty and void, conveniently depending on the erasure and dehumanization of the native populations they interacted with. As Hargrave and Lynn suggest, although writers like John Muir are lauded for their contributions to conservationism, their racist origins ignore the long-standing stewardship indigenous populations provided to these landscapes.” It’s this exact thinking that led to Hargrave and Lynn manipulating pages from Muir’s texts, along with writings and drawings from John Audubon and Billy Bartram, two other significant figures in the history of American conservation movements. In Bad Outdoorsmen, a large wall-based textile installation features pages from Muir’s text, abstracted with drawings from Bartram and Audubon. The artists printed Muir’s written works on fabric, attaching laser-cut leaf shapes atop to obscure his observations, making the words increasingly illegible – exposing the tropes and myths that contribute to our understanding of the outdoors. In 2022, at CEAM’s Artist Residency, Lynn and Hargrave searched the archives of the St. Augustine Historical Society to research Audubon and Bartram. Their findings inspired them to get out in the field, recording themselves visiting sites where Audubon camped and Bartram tried to start a homestead.


Excerpts from “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf" by John Muir in Bad Outdoorsmen. Courtesy of the artists.

In the exhibition at the CEAM, Hargrave and Lynn continue to examine their own relationship to public land through a mock audition tape for Alone. Exploring the disparities between conservationists Muir, Bartram, and Audubon and the survivalist contestants on Alone, Hargrave and Lynn created videos filmed at locations visited by these bad outdoorsmen. In each episode of Alone, a quote from a philosopher or author is featured in the opening credits, Muir being quoted in many of them. For their film, the artists screenshot images from the episodes that quoted Muir and printed them on fabric. They then laser cut the fabric into a leaf-like camouflage pattern and sewed them onto full-body suits, known as ghillie suits, traditionally designed to disguise hunters. Each suit took 6 months to make, about 80 hours of work, and has over 2,000 leaves. They’re beautiful works of art in their own right, and are worn by the artists in their “audition tape.” Hargrave and Lynn also expertly consider the framing of the experience outdoors, filming and photographing oneself in wilderness. “The camera is really an important part of that whole show, so that’s something we’re starting to think about as well…. We’re definitely thinking about the ways in which our bodies are positioned in relationship to the technology….” Hargrave shared in Dovetail.


Bad Outdoorsmen. Courtesy of the artists.

Experiencing Bad Outdoorsmen will make you question every experience you’ve had in the wilderness, in nature. It makes one long for the untold histories, question the trappings and equipment, and realize the privilege and authority in access to the environment. Starting January 20th at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum (CEAM) on Flagler College's campus at 48 Sevilla Street in downtown St. Augustine, Florida, Bad Outdoorsmen will be on display through April 19, 2025. On Friday, February 7, 2025, Meredith Laura Lynn will lead an artist walkthrough of the exhibition beginning at 5 p.m.. This event will take place during St. Augustine’s First Friday Artwalk – where more than 25 art galleries invite the public to their latest exhibits on the first Friday of every month. The Crisp-Ellert will be open that evening from 5 to 8 p.m. Regular museum hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m., while classes are in session. For further information on programming, please visit www.flagler.edu/ceam, or contact interim director Helena Rodriguez at (904) 826-8530 or crispellert@flagler.edu


CEAM is a venue that strives to foster knowledge and appreciation of contemporary art for the students at Flagler College as well as the community in Northeast Florida. As both an educational resource and exhibition space, the Museum regularly shows work from regional to international artists, and provides opportunities for engagement with visiting artists. In selecting artists for exhibitions, the Museum aims to challenge their students and the public while providing them with an opportunity to cultivate and consider their own individual creativity, critical reflection, historical consciousness, and respect for the free exchange of ideas.



Bad Outdoorsmen will be on display at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum (CEAM) from January 20, 2025 through April 19, 2025. CEAM is located at Flagler College, 48 Sevilla Street, St. Augustine, Florida. Museum hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m., while classes are in session. An artist walkthrough of the exhibition will be led by Meredith Laura Lynn on February 7, 2025 from 5 to 8 p.m. during First Friday Artwalk. This event is free and open to the public. CEAM programming is supported through grants from the Dr. JoAnn Crisp-Ellert Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council, the St. Johns Cultural Council, and voco, an IGH hotel. The Crisp-Ellert Art Museum is an accessible building. If you are a person with a disability and need accommodation, please contact Phil Pownall at (904) 819-6460. Sign Language Interpreters are available upon request (please provide a minimum of three days’ notice). For further information on our programming, please visit the website at www.flagler.edu/ceam, or contact interim director Helena Rodriguez at (904) 826-8530 or crispellert@flagler.edu. @crispellertart

Meredith Laura Lynn and Katie Hargrave are artists and educators who work collaboratively to explore the historic, cultural, and environmental impacts of so-called public land. Their work has been shown at the Knoxville Museum of Art (Knoxville, TN), Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA), the Wiregrass Museum of Art (Dothan, AL), Gadsden Museum of Art (Gadsden, AL), Austin Peay State University (Clarksville, TN), House Guest Gallery (Louisville, KY), Granary Arts (Ephraim, UT), and has been published by Walls Divide Press (Memphis, TN). Together they have been artists in residence at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum (St. Augustine, FL) and Signal Fire (Portland, OR). 

Meredith Laura Lynn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, where she teaches drawing, theory, and critical practices. She is also the curator of the Museum of Fine of Arts at FSU. As an artist, curator, and educator, she researches and considers the environment, land policy, and climate change in her multimedia, interdisciplinary practice. Her solo work has been shown at the Morris Graves Museum of Art (Eureka, CA), Miami University of Ohio (Oxford, OH), and the Alexander Brest Gallery (Jacksonville, Florida). She has been an artist in residence at the Jentel Foundation (Sheridan, WY), Kimmel Harding Nelson (Nebraska City, NE), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). Her studio-based and curatorial practice has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Indiana Arts Commission, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Andy Warhol Foundation. She received her BFA from Cornell University and her MFA from University of Iowa, where she met her long-time collaborator Katie Hargrave. Since 2018, the pair have explored issues with public land using a variety of media including installation, sculpture, books, paper, video, and photography. @meredithlauralynn

Katie Hargrave is an artist and educator based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her work focuses on material culture through the lens of U.S. politics, public land, and environmentalism. Her medium for expression includes installations, publications, videos, fiber works, and interactive experiences. Recent solo exhibitions include The Front (New Orleans, LA), Neon Heater (Finley, OH) and Alabama Contemporary Art Center (Mobile, AL). She has been an artist in residence at Epicenter (Green River, UT), Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts (Rabun Gap, GA), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). She has received numerous grants, including the Puffin Foundation, Tennessee Arts Commission, and CERF+. Hargrave holds a BFA from the University of Illinois, an MA from Brandeis University, and an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she met her frequent collaborator Meredith Laura Lynn. @katie_hargrave