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The profound desire for friendship and identification with wild animals and the craving to touch them and to share their aliveness is eventually lost, but at the imprinting stage it is experienced with almost painful intensity.

—Miriam Rothschild, Butterfly Cooing like a Dove

'Tides and Trees' explores childhood encounters with the natural world and how they shape our perception of the environment. Koch, who lives and works in Landers, California, in the Mojave Desert, pulls from images and memories of Olympia, Washington, where she grew up.

Through the lenses of conservation and wilding, including ‘shifting baseline’ theory (Frans Vera), the exhibition considers our changing sense of the landscape’s natural or wild state. Koch writes:

'Childhood experiences and memory not only shape attention toward the natural world; they set a baseline for how that world is seen over time. While these encounters can spur us to examine, critique, and act towards preservation of the environment, they can also skew how we define ‘normal’ or ‘desired’ landscapes, affecting how land is managed and how species are valued by communities and individuals. Still, while memory is an imperfect starting point, it’s essential in holding emotional space for the nonhuman world and cataloging change (folk memory) for future generations.'