Nicole Shaffer: To the Moon and Back @ Recology Art Studios
Written by Weston Teruya
Over the course of their practice, Nicole Shaffer has created works that explore the histories of institutional spaces and the experiences of people who have often been overlooked or marginalized, including queer and trans people, people with disabilities, and neurodiverse communities. Inspired by historical horticultural studies and the role of gardens and landscapes within institutional settings, Shaffer reflects on how these environments have shaped human experience. Their ongoing series of sculptures reimagines these spaces as places of connection, belonging, and restoration. Each piece is an exuberantly crafted, speculative garden feature, inviting reflection, gathering, and rest.
For their Recology exhibition, To the Moon and Back, Shaffer utilizes materials selected from the Public Reuse and Recycling Area rather than new supplies; honoring these found objects’ histories of past use. Their imprints and imperfections carry a spiritual quality of lives and contexts that Shaffer listens to and coaxes into forms for remembrance and beauty. Like the bodies of those who have been targeted as ‘abnormal,’ whose value has been questioned, they may have been removed from circulation, but Shaffer invites them back into a new artistic community. Details like engraved plaques with sentimental messages placed on vintage clocks reward close looking, speaking to lost personal stories and intimacies that are melancholy and loving, embracing the complex memory of lives lost to institutional misdeeds but given new room in Shaffer’s work.
Nicole Shaffer creates research-based installations incorporating historical research, family history, and passed-down craft techniques that center the lived experiences of trans/gender variant, queer, mad and neurodiverse people. They have received a fellowship from Kala Art Institute and a graduate fellowship at Headlands Center for the Arts. Their work has been exhibited in Bay Area Now 9 at YBCA and at Southern Exposure, The Lab, SOMArts, 500 Capp Street, and Root Division. They have been a resident artist at Real Time and Space and Lucky Break Studios. They received their MFA with distinction from San Francisco State University and was a recipient of the Cadogan award.
Hours/Events
Friday, September 18, 2026 from 5 – 8 PM
Saturday, September 19, 2026 from 12 – 3 PM
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 from 5 – 7:30 PM with artist talk by Yiming Clara at 6 PM (401 Tunnel), Vanessa Woods at 6:30 PM (503 Tunnel), and Nicole Shaffer at 7 PM (503 Tunnel).
*available by appointment through October 2nd
Admission is free and open to the public, no reservation required. All ages are welcome and the site is wheelchair accessible.