Jan 21-Feb 23
Artist Lecture: Jan 28 @ 5:30 SDT
From the Inside Looking Out:
As tent campers and parks enthusiasts, we spend a lot of time in the company of Airstreams, Winnebagos, and Jaycos, and have come to appreciate that for many, the RV makes a kind of relationship to nature possible. RVs can recreate the comfort and access of home, in the middle of spaces the government has set aside to be preserved as wild. We have seen our fellow campers set up potted plants, satellite dishes, and full multi-course meals, in the middle of what we hope to be wilderness. This comfort and accessibility is in opposition to romantic visions of state and national parks and some approaches to conservation. As nature writer Edward Abbey put it in Desert Solitaire, “You can’t see anything from a car.” In From the Inside Looking Out, we explore what can actually be seen from a car, by turning vehicles, including vans and teardrop campers, into cameras obscura. Using these mobile cameras, we documented three sites: Rainbow Springs State Park in Florida, Joshua Tree National Park in California, and Canyonlands National Park in Utah. The photographs and videos in this exhibition show how our relationship to nature is made possible and limited by tools of mediation.
About the Artists:
Katie Hargrave and Meredith Lynn are artists and educators who work collaboratively to explore the historic, cultural, and environmental impacts of public land. Their work has been shown at the New Gallery at Austin Peay State University (Clarksville, TN), the Wiregrass Museum of Art (Dothan, AL), House Guest Gallery (Louisville, KY), and has been published by Walls Divide Press. Together they have been artists in residence at Signal Fire (Portland, OR).
Hargrave is based in Chattanooga, TN and has also had exhibitions at The Front (New Orleans, LA), Neon Heater (Finley, OH) and the Wienberg/Newton Gallery (Chicago, IL). She has been an artist in residence at Epicenter (Green River, UT), Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts (Raybun Gap, GA), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). She is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga.
Lynn is based in Tallahassee, FL. Her solo work has recently been shown at the Morris Graves Museum of Art (Eureka, CA), Miami University of Ohio, and the Alexander Brest Gallery at Jacksonville University. She has been artist in residence at the Jentel Foundation (Sheridan, WY), the Kimmel Harding Nelson (Nebraska City, NE), and the Vermont Studio Center. She is an Assistant Curator at Florida State University. Hargrave and Lynn met at the University of Iowa, where they both earned MFAs.