Nature Preserves Artist-in-Residence

Artist-in-Residence Program

An installation by Scott Hazard called Hidden Rock #1, outside of Annie Louise Wilkerson, MD Nature Preserve Park — *Hidden Rock #1* is a site-specific sculpture installation by Scott Hazard located at the Visitor’s Center in Annie Louise Wilkerson, MD Nature Preserve Park.

Scott Hazard is the City of Raleigh Artist-in-Residence for Nature Preserves and is concluding his residency in winter 2026. During the residency, Hazard has explored ecologically focused art practices including environmental and land art, environmental stewardship, working with natural materials, and sustainable processes and has created artwork and led a series of public programs throughout 2024–2025. Working closely with Nature Preserve staff, he has integrated art elements across Raleigh’s four nature preserves, Annie Louise Wilkerson, MD Nature Preserve Park; Durant Nature Preserve; and Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve, to enhance the parks’ natural beauty and advance the City’s mission of preserving wild flora and fauna.

Learn more about the Nature Parks, Preserves, and Programs.

Rhythm and Whispers Sculpture

Hazard installed his Rhythms and Whispers Sculpture on January 12, 2026. Resembling a large scope-like device, this sculpture is nestled into the edge of the meadow at Annie Louise Wilkerson Nature Preserve and frames a view of the landscape beyond. Inspired by the bellows of a vintage camera from the 1800s, it consists of 15 weathered steel panels, which have been laser-cut and assembled to form topography that references the meadow you are in. The panels include text in both Skarù·rę and English, written by local poets, writers, and the artist to reflect what is happening in this place. The front and rear panels include silhouettes of Tridens flavus (Purpletop Grass), an important grass found in prairies and grasslands in the Piedmont. The sculpture touches on themes including human connections to the land and nature, Piedmont prairies and the plants, animals, insects, and organisms that live in them, and the near and distant histories of the North Carolina landscape.

Residency Events and Activities

Scott Hazard New Sculpture — Rendering by Katherine Gottsegen, courtesy of Scott Hazard Studio

Piedmont Grassland and Environmental Art Event
A free, public event was held at Durant Nature Preserve where participants learned about the Triangle’s historic grasslands and helped install a mini Piedmont Prairie surrounding a new sculpture by Scott Hazard, designed to create habitat for chimney swifts. (November 9, 2024)

“plants, and birds, and rocks (and things)” Exhibition
This exhibition, curated by Scott Hazard at the Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve Farmhouse, featured works by North Carolina artists Claire Alexandre, Annie Blazejack and Geddes Levenson, Chieko Murasugi, Julia Einstein, Janet Link, Marcus Dunn, Patrizia Ferreira, Pete Sack, and Hazard. The exhibition also included new poetry inspired by Raleigh’s Nature Preserves by Lauren Hunter and Chris Tonelli and was previously presented at Block Gallery. (October 26–December 1, 2024)

About the Artist

Scott Hazard is a visual artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He earned degrees in landscape architecture and visual art from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and the University of Florida. His mixed-media works explore how we collectively engage, understand, exploit, and celebrate the land we inhabit. Delving into recent and distant histories of human interaction with our environment, as well as geology, hydrology, and plant ecology, the landscape becomes something that can be read. Hazard builds mixed-media works and sculptures using numerous layers of flat materials ranging from paper and photographs to wood and steel that are carefully torn or cut, spaced apart and aligned to define sculptural voids, portals, and micro-landscapes. Whether the work is a small wall mounted sculpture or an object in the landscape, his focus is to elicit a distinct and lyrical sense of place by listening and conducting research and then highlighting natural and cultural narratives found at a given site.

Learn more about Scott Hazard

Nature Parks, Preserves, and Programs

Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve

Raleigh Arts Galleries and Exhibitions