June 23 & 27 · '3 out of 70,968' Compact Residency

Compound is pleased to present 3 out of 70,968, a publication and installation born in response to collaborative study of Lucy Lippard’s Lure of the Local. As part of Compound’s Compact Residency, Kristen Jean Wheatley, Aida Lizalde, and Aidan Koch react to Lippard’s essays, “Out the Picture Window” and “Places with a Present” in consideration of their artistic practices. In a working group, the artists discuss land-use, natural disaster, localism, and familiarity through their experiences living and making in the Morongo Basin. The residency holds place at its center, surveying reality alongside idealization. 

The title, 3 out of 70,968, follows a naming convention set by Lucy Lippard for three exhibitions in Seattle, WA (pop. 557,087), Buenos Aires, AR (2,972,453), and Vancouver, CA (955,000). 70,968 represents the number of people living in the Morongo Basin, per the Twentynine Palms-Yucca Valley Census County Division compiled by the American Community Survey in 2024. Aidan represents one of 2,764 people in Landers, CA. Aida and Kristen represent two of 27,355 people in 29 Palms, CA.

3 out of 70,968 is part of Compound’s Compact Residency, the gallery’s every-so-annual experiment with summer programming: shorter-format, less structured shows led by at least one locally-based artist. Wheatley’s work was previously featured in a group show Waiting for the Wind at Compound in Fall 2025, and we’re thrilled for her return with this new, more research-focused collaboration with first-time Compound artists Koch and Lizalde.

OPEN BY APPOINTMENT
email hello@compoundyv.com

SPECIAL PROGRAMMING

• Tuesday, June 23, 2026 5–6pm
  Virtual Reading with Aida Lizalde and Kristen Jean Wheatley
  *Please RSVP here
• Saturday, June 27, 2026 6–10pm
  Publication Release and Closing Reception

ARTIST BIOS

KRISTEN JEAN WHEATLEY (she/her) is an artist from rural Southwest Virginia working with activity, circulation, and endurance. She uses wood, fabric, and metal to actualize her sculptural and performative work. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘PLOT’ at Lazy Eye Gallery and ‘Count the Ways’ exhibited through the Yucca Valley Public Art Program. Her work has also been shown in group shows at the Anderson, Compound YV, Kimball Art Center, and Snide Hotel, among others. Additionally, she has been awarded a Dean's Research Grant at Virginia Commonwealth University and residencies through Vermont Studio Center, the Artlands REACH Program, and ACRE. Through her work, Wheatley explores the ways we move and the way the world moves around us. By carefully observing both natural and human systems, she learns, follows, tracks, and responds through artistic production. By creating objects that make the invisible visible, she activates and investigates each cycle. She encourages audiences to look around and question how they consume, interact with, and even depend on the movement of resources, people, information, and themselves. 

AIDAN KOCH is an artist and graphic novelist based in the Mojave Desert on unceded Serrano land. Koch's work uses modes of ecological story-telling to explore loving and fraught relationships between humans, non-human animals, and landscapes. She is the author of several graphic novels including Xeric Award winning, The Blonde Woman (2012), After Nothing Comes (2016) and Spiral and Other Stories (2024); with short works featured in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Frieze Magazine, Best American Comics 2014, and MoMA PS1 GNY series. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, South Bend Museum of Art, and Queens University Belfast, among others. Koch's ongoing projects, Institute for Interspecies Art and Relations and Environmental Comics, act as pedagogical and collaborative extensions of her ecological inquiries.

AIDA LIZALDE is a sculptor whose primary medium is ceramic. Their work explores the interplay between the natural and artificial, the physical and psychological, and the potential for harmony and failure within these relationships. Born in Mexico, Lizalde immigrated to the California Central Valley with their family at fifteen years of age and has since lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, most recently living in the Mojave Desert and Mexico City before relocating to St. Louis to teach ceramics at WashU. They hold a B.A. in Studio Art with a minor in Art History from the University of California, Davis (2018) and earned an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University (2023). Lizalde has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture, the William and Dorothy Yeck Award from the 2023 Miami University Young Sculptors Competition, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. Their work has been exhibited widely; recent exhibitions include The Torggler Art Center, Personal Space, Robert E. and Martha Hull Lee Gallery, Alfred University, and The Dairy Center.