Flatlanders
4.1 channel sound, water-cast bronze, performance
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art
Omaha, Nebraska

Flatlanders is a performance and sculpture series inspired by Omaha's last major tornadic swarm (May 6th, 1975). The exhibition functions as a communal meditation on dissipative structures, thresholds of complexity, the behavior of destructive forces and how we might learn to ontologize natural phenomena as sovereign beings. Drawing inspiration from working in the plains of Nebraska, and finding connective threads to the encounter Edwin Abbott’s Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions (1884)—which fictionalizes conversations between beings across complex dimensions—the exhibition consists of several bronze bowls (made in collaboration with Vivian Chiu), and a spatial sound performance making use of never-before heard archival recordings taken by Omaha’s 911 emergency response call center.

Made with the generous support of Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Douglas County Historical Society, Tom Harnack of Omaha Clayworks, Les Bruning of Bruning Sculpture, Sophia Glasser-Kerr.