Floodplain Projects is a collaborative studio. We produce visual art, publications, exhibitions, podcasts and events. We bring together emerging artists, students and professional artists for projects in the Central Valley of California.

Contact:
eliza.gregory [at] gmail

Website:
https://www.elizagregory.org/

[Placeholder: Flooding the Notch] Short Film
2025

 [Placeholder: Flooding the Notch] documents a social practice art project led by Professor Eliza Gregory in collaboration with the 2026 Sacramento State photography Cohort. 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

Photography: See interior credits. 

Paid for by the Photography Special Projects Fund at Sac State.



Social Studies Residency
2024-2026

This is a partnership between Sac State Photo and Social Studies Residency. Social Studies Residency co-directors Ross and Sierra host a special session of their residency for one Sac State Photo graduate per year. They select the resident from the graduating class. Sac State Photo fundraises to be able to offer a stipend to the resident, and cover the utilities costs for Social Studies (which the other residents usually contribute). For the inaugural residency, the stipend was provided by a specific donor to the Photography Special Projects Fund for that purpose. The next resident will be selected from the 2026 cohort of Photography BFA's at Sac State.

The resident is then invited to return to Sac State Photo after their residency and give a talk about the experience, alongside Ross and Sierra who present the project.

Floodplain Projects invests in this partnership as a way to showcase creating opportunities with the resources at hand, bringing art to rural communities, and offering in-kind support from artists to artists. The Photography Special Projects Fund supports this partnership because it creates a professional development opportunity for a Sac State Photo grad. And it's featured on this website because a student got paid to make art.

The 2024 selected resident was Trevor Dahm, and he shares about his residency below.

→ WEBSITE HERE
→ INSTAGRAM HERE
Social Studies Residency:

→ WEBSITE HERE → INSTAGRAM HERE