At select intervals throughout the run of the exhibition Ear to the Ground: Earth and Element in Contemporary Art, New Orleans-based artist Cristina Molina will host a series of intimate guided tours of the exhibition in which she will assume the perspective of the earth, personified.

Drawing upon cultural mythologies of the underworld, Molina will guide museum visitors through a whispered exploration of the exhibition in which the different artworks in the exhibition constitute the topography of an imagined subterranean landscape. Inspired by the classical myth of Persephone, who was doomed to spend a third of the year in the underworld, Molina reimagines this mythological figure as an empowered goddess who harnesses the earth as a place of primordial cultural emergence. Spanning video installation, performance, photography, sculpture and textile design, Molina’s work privileges female protagonists to explore themes related to origins, heritage, and personal mythology, and how they work in concert with natural and urban landscapes.

Admission to NOMA is free on Wednesdays for all Louisiana residents courtesy of The Helis Foundation.