The Cerritos College Art Gallery is hosting a Geo-Ontological panel discussion in which the artists contemplate deep time on Sept. 24, 2018.

The exhibition, which opened on Aug. 28, “explores the anthropological entanglements that exist within, and between, geophysical life worlds,” according to the press release.

Four of the artists who are participating in the exhibition are coming to the panel to talk about their art, practice and their own, larger body of work as artists and how they think their art fits in to this particular exhibition, said Cerritos College Art Gallery Director James MacDevitt.

Chris Hanke, Randi Hokett, Virginia Katz and Pam Posey will be speaking at the panel and have more information about their artwork on their websites.

MacDevitt also hopes they will “hopefully have a representative from the earth sciences department here as well, so a professor from that program [can] sort of provide a factual framework… to hopefully provide some context to how this work is playing off of the concepts, visual and conceptual [from] geology, but also how it’s diverting from them.”

Brian Lombera, art gallery assistant, said Hokett will give a live demonstration of one of her art pieces that crystallizes, so that audiences can see it change over time.

Lombera said the connection between art and geology is strong, “because science and art have a strong connection, especially if you think very early on, early images of science, the way people studied science before was they were actually drawing very detailed, intricate drawings.

Therefore, that’s [how] they learned, was through drawing. It wasn’t through photographs or computers or 3D. It’s a visual way of learning. So there’s that aspect of how the arts and sciences are connected, but also in this case, the artists are thinking about things like the future, the past [and] post-humanist theory,” Lombera elaborated.

Overall, MacDevitt believes the response to the exhibit has been positive.

“We had probably 300 people here at the opening, the very next day we… had about 120 come in. We’re getting good flow. It helps that we’re very prominently placed in the building. You just walk in and there we are.”

Regarding space for the discussion panel, they can only fit so much people in the room, but anyone who is interested is welcome to stay and find a way to squeeze in he said.

The exhibit will be open until Oct. 5.