A series of weekly installations curated by Louise Fisher featuring local artists investigating the ethical production and consumption of environmental art. Visitors will be able to view installations outdoors at 229 N. Gilbert.
July 12-17 || JAGER PALAD
July 19-24 || CAITLIN MARY MARGARETT
performance Wed. 7/22 at 5:30pm
July 26-31 || AYLA BOYLEN
August 2-7 || TIM TABOR
August 9-14 || PRAIRIE SCHOOL OF ART/PEGGY FITZGERALD
CURATOR’S STATEMENT:
Are we going far enough?
Similar to the remorseful afterlife of packaging, environmental artists negotiate the physical and social impact of their materials and presentation. Transactions of artwork then pass responsibility back onto consumers. While there is a purpose for environmental work which is sellable and object-based, Post-Consumer Content provides five local artists a space to merge creativity with direct action. In this exhibition, installations and performances will take place outdoors; allowing public participation and disruption to the urban landscape. Featured artists transcend a purely aesthetic experience by presenting work which is experiential, immersive and educational. From a youth-curated cabinet of curiosities, sculptures made from salvaged materials, a live performance to interactive shrines—Post-Consumer Content beckons us to imagine creativity after the art market; a circular way of making with mutual survival for the artist and viewer.
Jager Palad
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Jager Palad grew up working in mechanical jobs such as bicycle building and repair, technician for department stores, and commercial building construction. Witnessing this bottom-up view of capitalism gave him insight into the vast amount of waste that results from these systems of production and consumption. Things are rarely fixed, often replaced, resulting in piles of waste. These piles are an opportunity for the materials to conceptually show their aesthetic through embodying ideas of excess, function, chance, and reincarnation. He received his Bachelor’s in Fine Art from the University of Central Florida in 2014, and is currently obtaining his Masters in Fine Art, specializing in printmaking at the University of Iowa.
Caitlin Mary Margarett
Caitlin Mary Margarett is a Midwestern artist, born and raised between Minnesota and Iowa. She is currently working across disciplines and holds a BFA in performance art and a BA in art history from the University of Northern Iowa (2018). Using her art practice as a vehicle, Caitlin Mary Margarett researches ethics, religious performativity, and gender studies; attempting to make sense of feminist spirituality, systems of flourishing, and suffering. In the past year, her work has been shown throughout the Midwest, at Louisiana State University, in “Ceramics Monthly,” Emergency Index, V. 8, and Aesthetica Magazine. She is currently preparing for her research trip and solo show in Berlin, Germany, at LITEHAUS GALERIE & PROJEKTRAUM, slated for this fall.
Ayla Boylen
Ayla Boylen is a fourth year art student at Mount Mercy University, minoring in Environmental Justice and Psychology. She grew up in the country near Waterville Iowa supported by her parents Scott, and Kelli. She is involved with the Environmental Defense League Action Network, is the leader of the Cedar Rapids Climate Strikers, and has worked with the Sunrise Movement Cedar Rapids hub and Cedar Rapids City Council to help pass a climate resolution for the city. Much of her artistic work is strongly influenced by environmental justice, and she hopes to find a career path that continues to combine activism and art.
Tim Tabor
Tim Tabor
Born and raised in South Dakota. Art School and Adult life in Iowa. Full time child care provider - the house and yard became a lived-in sculpture. Ask the kids! Also lived in Texas, Japan, New Zealand, and France. And left some art there along the way. Hobbies include collecting string, making unexpected things, and moving very heavy objects, preferably concrete.
Peggy Fitzgerald
Peggy Fitzgerald and Prairie School of Art
Peggy Fitzgerald has 30+ years of experience teaching art to children and adults. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and an M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education from the College of Charleston. Peggy is currently on faculty at the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA. Prairie School of Art is a major factor in her teaching pre-service teachers how to infuse art in their general education curriculum. As the teacher for Prairie School of Art, she provides adult and children’s art lessons when she is in town. Peggy has been a media secretary for Wickham Elementary and Shimek Elementary Schools. She has conducted art workshops regularly at the Shimek BASP and other BASPs in the ICCSD, has taught French at Shimek and Horn Elementary Schools, and has conducted puppet-making workshops, performed and created sets with Eulenspiegel Theater for many years.
ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Louise Fisher
Louise Fisher is an Iowa-based artist and holds an MFA in printmaking at Arizona State University. Louise grew up on a farm in her home state of Iowa, where she obtained her BFA degree with honors from the University of Northern Iowa. Since then, she has shown her work nationally and internationally. Outside of her individual studio practice, Fisher is profoundly inspired by the shared nature of the printmaking studio and seeks out collaborative projects. She is a founding member of the Iowa City Press Co-op and has been working with makers and community organizers on object-based artworks and arts programming since 2014. Her conceptual interests include ecology, sustainability, collectivism, transnational feminism and post-humanist theory.