Robert Lawrence In Person Home, once rooted in the land, bespoke place, family and a continuity of values. To some, this might suggest the embrace of nostalgia. But as neighborhoods become demographic clusters and bed-and-breakfasts co-opt country living, the need to reaffirm our connection to a culture bound to place takes on heightened import. In Robert Lawrence's Orange County Regional, the bounty of associations evoked by a locale are unlocked in a humorous personal work. In this case, the central setting is the John Wayne Airport, a tarmac for endless flights of fancy. For Lawrence, memories of the airport, surrounded by orderly tract homes, bring about a peculiar play of Western myths that have to do with family, manhood and the wide-open spaces. Here, the lure of the once-feisty frontier is lulled by the whine of lawn mowers. Helen De Michiel's Turn Here Sweet Corn takes us to the edge of suburbia where farms meet the bulldozers of progress. Eagan, a rural community near Minneapolis, is the site of cultural erosion for this ardent visual essay. At the "Gardens of Eagan," two tenant farmers harvest their last crop. These resolute yeomen have a hearty respect for the land and a desire to just stay put. In stark contrast, tacky pre-fab homes invade the nearby pasture like a passing blight. Director De Michiel is an unrepentant reclamationist. She wants to recover what was lost when the developers paved paradise. --Steve Seid