https://matthewfluharty.work Matthew Fluharty Tue, 04 Jan 2022 15:09:58 +0000 https://matthewfluharty.work en https://matthewfluharty.work/Matthew-Fluharty Sun, 28 Nov 2021 21:18:50 +0000 Matthew Fluharty https://matthewfluharty.work/Matthew-Fluharty Local Practice: <img width="2212" height="1659" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/2000/q/75/i/0939d40eee8a466c3749288aa6df7b8b9db4827174b809d47bee8ee258b51bd0/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-3.23.55-PM.png" style="width: 761.914px; height: 571.435px;">Family Video, August 18, 2016; Matthew Fluharty The projects included below, alongside my curatorial/collaborative work and leadership of Art of the Rural, are animated by an evolving network of values, relationships, and investigation that I call local practice.&nbsp; These ideas were first articulated in a series of essays I edited for the Walker Art Center in 2016:&nbsp;Through a tentative frame of “local practice,” this series investigates the questions and relationships raised through deep, long-term, on-the-ground engagement with the particularities of place and community, whether within urban neighborhoods or rural locations. As Lucy Lippard wrote in The Lure of the Local, many of us are now “multicentered,” and, whether through choice or consequence, we have deep, tangled relationships between numerous urban and rural locations. The particularity, and divergences, of those allegiances add nuance to this rural-urban consciousness, and provide an alternate frame upon which to build. &nbsp; Counterpublic 2026: A Shape Without A Word<img width="4863" height="3647" width_o="4863" height_o="3647" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ae6a40e11569b0c86275042da3947af8a3df55945b232893fe06d23606c6e345/IMG_7328.jpeg" data-mid="250922051" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ae6a40e11569b0c86275042da3947af8a3df55945b232893fe06d23606c6e345/IMG_7328.jpeg" /> This fall, as part of the 2026&nbsp;Counterpublic triennial, I am collaboring with my colleagues in M12 Studio on an installation at the National Building Arts Center in Sauget Illinois, in the American Bottom flood plain across the river from St. Louis. Deep gratitude to curators James McAnally and NON STNDRD for this invitation.&nbsp; This piece will re-present the timbers of an 1840’s hand-hewn log cabin (hidden within a modern St. Louis home for years before a 2021 fire), alongside salvaged steel plates originally acquired by the late National Building Arts Center founder Larry Giles for an unrealized viewing platform.&nbsp; A Shape Without a Word emerges directly from the post-industrial landscape of the National Building Arts Center and its setting within the former company town of Monsanto—present-day Sauget, Illinois. Situated at an epicenter of both regional industrial production and global ecological devastation, this work considers architecture and relational exchange and spontaneous becoming under conditions that, at first, might appear resistant to renewal.The installation brings timber salvaged from an early settler cabin into conversation with a ruderal garden thriving in a sealed sand bunker on the site. Reaching out from the bunker and into the installation space, the presence of mulberry trees and the movement of their shadows reinforce a generative and nondualist relationship to time, growth, and ecological succession within an ongoing dialogue between the built and living environment – creating a potent space for reflection on the interconnected, and evolving, relationships between industrial decline, environmental degradation, and the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism. Rural Archive <img width="4536" height="3793" width_o="4536" height_o="3793" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/10d00fb67698e335476130818a232a2edaf6e9acfeb6a237f4d19db779bd52eb/IMG_20211113_0001.jpg" data-mid="125861652" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/10d00fb67698e335476130818a232a2edaf6e9acfeb6a237f4d19db779bd52eb/IMG_20211113_0001.jpg" />2016 -Present https://ruralarchive.org/ [launching February 2026] Inspired by the work of On Kawara, my evolving Zen practice, and a few generations of newspaper writers in my family, I began in spring of 2016 to cut out and methodically archive newspaper photography of rural places and cultures from two sources: the local rural publications I would encounter in my travels and their urban, mainstream counterparts at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. What began as a personal practice of pausing to mark time and place, and appreciating the art of local photojournalism, evolved into a much deeper, contradictory, and complex activity as the 2016 Presidential Election revealed to urban audiences the wide rifts between themselves and the rural communities I knew well. The difference in this visual language, and editorial hand, spoke to this condition in alternately forceful and subtle ways.I have continued this practice, as these cultural, political, technological, and economic chasms have intensified in the years since -- and this work has expanded to include subscriptions to numerous rural newspapers, often in counterdisctinction to a single feature written about this community by the New York Times. Between these two platforms, what emerges is a much deeper, and much more ambiguous, articulation of our shared present moment. Now in its currrent form, Rural Archive houses and catalogs thousands of newsprint photographs and articles. Though this has been a private and deeply personal practice for close to six years, this archive was publicly debuted as part of the Field Notes exhibition at the Form + Content gallery in Minneapolis in November 2022. Gratitude to Minnesota PBS, which created a feature on my work and Local Archive. It can be seen here. I am currently editing a catalogue of these images. Snow Piles of the Upper Mississippi <img width="4864" height="3648" width_o="4864" height_o="3648" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/acc52a5a945e93e3207238c157b81804b64b15a8e401215bc5b7b1a4d7ee46af/IMG_9198.JPG" data-mid="125861313" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/acc52a5a945e93e3207238c157b81804b64b15a8e401215bc5b7b1a4d7ee46af/IMG_9198.JPG" />February 16, 2019 2019 - Present http://snowpiles.org/ Snow Piles of the Upper Mississippi is an ongoing project focused on the connected experiences of water, land, and community. Begun in January 2019, this work centers on a large, evolving photographic archive of contemporary snow piles. This project observes the snow pile as an element of local architecture, art, history, and infrastructure – an everyday aperture through which to consider cultural, ecological, and political change. A small selection of these photographs, alongside stereograph images from the Elmer and Tenney collection documenting the historic “Snow Winter” of 1880-1881, was on view at the Winona County History Center in 2023. This exhibit was be joined with public actions, conversations, and meals that bring together archives and personal histories. A collaborative community publication is currently being planned.&nbsp;The local newspaper, The Winona Daily News, published this feature piece on this project.&nbsp; The American Bottom Project <img width="1024" height="768" width_o="1024" height_o="768" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3d2fcdbc391a23dec995f28f219b93de0dffd5eb26dc91bcd5cd2d442279b578/E9685E7C-E5A6-4F45-B4EC-D6B92D459FDE_1_105_c.jpeg" data-mid="125862219" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3d2fcdbc391a23dec995f28f219b93de0dffd5eb26dc91bcd5cd2d442279b578/E9685E7C-E5A6-4F45-B4EC-D6B92D459FDE_1_105_c.jpeg" /> The American Bottom Gazette, issue 2 2013 - Presenthttp://theamericanbottom.org/ https://www.artoftherural.org/media/the-american-bottom-project Through both an extensive digital resource and The American Bottom Gazette regional print publication, The American Bottom Project invites scholars, activists, artists, educators, and citizens to collaborate towards telling the complicated history of the 65-mile Mississippi River floodplain to the east of St. Louis. Begun in 2013, this work has recently been featured in Art in America and is the supported by Illinois Humanities and a Divided City grant via the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. I’m grateful to be collaborating with Jesse Vogler, Jennifer Colten, and Alissa Blatter in this longterm work.I’m looking forward in 2024 to co-creating further issues of the Gazette with my colleagues, alongside extended support for an artist of culture-bearer to work closely with community organizations in the region to cultivate relationships and share the lived experiences and cultural histories of this region. https://matthewfluharty.work/Creative-Curation Wed, 01 Dec 2021 16:11:47 +0000 Matthew Fluharty https://matthewfluharty.work/Creative-Curation Curation &amp; Caretaking: Counterpublic 2026: A Shape Without A Word<img width="4863" height="3647" width_o="4863" height_o="3647" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ae6a40e11569b0c86275042da3947af8a3df55945b232893fe06d23606c6e345/IMG_7328.jpeg" data-mid="251120758" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ae6a40e11569b0c86275042da3947af8a3df55945b232893fe06d23606c6e345/IMG_7328.jpeg" /> This fall, as part of the 2026 Counterpublic triennial, I am collaboring with my colleagues in M12 Studio on an installation at the National Building Arts Center in Sauget Illinois, in the American Bottom flood plain across the river from St. Louis. Deep gratitude to curators James McAnally and NON STNDRD for this invitation. This piece will re-present the timbers of an 1840’s hand-hewn log cabin (hidden within a modern St. Louis home for years before a 2021 fire), alongside salvaged steel plates originally acquired by the late National Building Arts Center founder Larry Giles for an unrealized viewing platform. A Shape Without a Word emerges directly from the post-industrial landscape of the National Building Arts Center and its setting within the former company town of Monsanto—present-day Sauget, Illinois. Situated at an epicenter of both regional industrial production and global ecological devastation, this work considers architecture and relational exchange and spontaneous becoming under conditions that, at first, might appear resistant to renewal.The installation brings timber salvaged from an early settler cabin into conversation with a ruderal garden thriving in a sealed sand bunker on the site. Reaching out from the bunker and into the installation space, the presence of mulberry trees and the movement of their shadows reinforce a generative and nondualist relationship to time, growth, and ecological succession within an ongoing dialogue between the built and living environment – creating a potent space for reflection on the interconnected, and evolving, relationships between industrial decline, environmental degradation, and the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism. USA Artists Fellowship Panelist <img width="1488" height="1852" width_o="1488" height_o="1852" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f395025a77155f35ad2af024ecfab601190715d17b1fe4d5a738c7aa43a6d867/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-11.53.46AM.png" data-mid="243915481" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f395025a77155f35ad2af024ecfab601190715d17b1fe4d5a738c7aa43a6d867/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-11.53.46AM.png" /> https://www.unitedstatesartists.org/programs/usa-fellowship I was grateful to join Fanna Gebreyesus and Sue Bell Yank as panelists for the Visual Arts portfolio for the 2026 USA Artists Fellowship.&nbsp; Interstates: The 2026 Sioux City Art Center Biennial<img width="2364" height="1810" width_o="2364" height_o="1810" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/881ee6b4288cc6be4c7efef0594aabd4a5bfde17d1a068483a1652b17c4e0828/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-12.02.41PM.png" data-mid="243915499" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/881ee6b4288cc6be4c7efef0594aabd4a5bfde17d1a068483a1652b17c4e0828/Screenshot-2026-01-24-at-12.02.41PM.png" />https://siouxcityartcenter.org/exhibition/2026-biennial-interstates/ I’m grateful to serve as&nbsp;Guest Curator for The 2026 Sioux City Art Center Biennial. This year’s biennial invites artists to create new work that reflects on movement, connection, and distance as they shape life. The quality of living inter-states is also a powerful, complex, generative verb in our region — a way of being and lived experience that is relational, spiritual, historical, and cultural. I’ve been deeply moved, challenged, and brought into relationship by the work of visual artists in this region as they investigate the presence and impacts of these inter-states. It’s an honor to contribute towards their work reaching new audiences. The is on view from April 16, 2026 to August 9, 2026.&nbsp; Spillway <img width="880" height="587" width_o="880" height_o="587" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/66d3256b01d75542d9cc96751f9c618711ea8ed11173a725b37d5a1edb6c064a/npr.brightspotcdn.jpg" data-mid="190628490" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/880/i/66d3256b01d75542d9cc96751f9c618711ea8ed11173a725b37d5a1edb6c064a/npr.brightspotcdn.jpg" /> Faye Dant, Director of Jim’s Journey: The Huck Finn Freedom Center in Hannibal, Missouri; photo: Anna Sirianni, KBIA https://www.artoftherural.org/initiatives/spillway Spillway is a longterm, collaborative program grounded in the diverse cultures, communities, and social contexts of the Upper Mississippi River region that stretches from the headwaters in northern Minnesota to the confluence with the Ohio River, in Cairo, Illinois. Through support for artists, culture-bearers, artisans, and storytellers – alongside the local organizations that support them – Spillway works to create the conditions for engaged projects that honor diverse lived experience, deepen regional relationships, and build networks of knowledge-sharing and exchange that will create opportunities for artists, culture-bearers, and artisans to thrive and to connect with new colleagues and audiences.Spillway cultivates these values through three interlinked efforts: longterm fellowships for artists and culture-bearers in communities along the River, an online storytelling and knowledge sharing platform, and an annual Spillway Summit -- a free weekend of performances, exhibitions, excursions, and barbecues that also is an opportunity for the welcoming and hosting of the community cohorts involved in this work. Spillway is an initiative supporting artists, culture-bearers, and local organizations in their expression of the diverse cultures, communities, and histories of the Upper Mississippi River region. Work is underway with the Honoring Dakota Project in Dakota Homelands; Engage Winona and the Winona County Historical Society in Winona, Minnesota; Manoomin Arts Initiative in Mahnomen, MN and White Earth Nation;&nbsp;Jim’s Journey: The Huck Finn Freedom Center in Hannibal, Missouri; the Crossings field school in St. Louis, Missouri; the Historical Society of Brooklyn, Illinois, and The American Bottom Project in the East St. Louis region of Illinois.I’m grateful for the support of the Builders Initiative and McKnight Foundation as this collaborative work launches in the full program launches in the fall of 2022. Spillway Stories, a welcoming together of artists, culture-bearers, and storytellers to share the history, experiences, and visions for the future that animate community in the Winona, Minnesota region is currently online. https://spillway.xyz/ <img width="955" height="469" width_o="955" height_o="469" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/eb83ce78d97e907f23910049c01ba2ecfba1f595e588531ee2a9c9efaa3ecebe/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-10.28.50-AM.png" data-mid="126204427" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/955/i/eb83ce78d97e907f23910049c01ba2ecfba1f595e588531ee2a9c9efaa3ecebe/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-10.28.50-AM.png" />Many Waters: A Minnesota Biennial is a look into some of the imaginative and dedicated ways that artists and culture bearers from across the state are engaging with water.&nbsp; This work was featured both at the the Minnesota Museum of American Art and the NewStudio Gallery in St. Paul.https://mmaa.org/many-waters/ I am grateful for the opportunity to jury this exhibition with&nbsp;Dakota Hoska, Assistant Curator of Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum; Laura Joseph, Curator of Exhibitions at the Minnesota Museum of American Art; and Jovan C. Speller, a visual artist and curator.&nbsp; High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country <img width="1151" height="1022" width_o="1151" height_o="1022" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/55457b6951a562f431e6544c2f93196e60daff605b3b173f65f27d86eb32586f/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-10.25.51-AM.png" data-mid="126204169" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/55457b6951a562f431e6544c2f93196e60daff605b3b173f65f27d86eb32586f/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-10.25.51-AM.png" /> Shanai Matteson, Overburden/Overlook, 2020 and Sara Pajunen, Mine Songs, 2020 High Visibility is a longterm, collaborative partnership between Art of the Rural, Plains Art Museum, and individuals &amp; organizations across the continent. Through exhibitions, publications, and place-based programs, our aim over time is to boldly reframe the narrative on rural America and Indian Country and to welcome sustained rural-urban exchange. I am deeply grateful to serve as organizing curator for this ongoing initiative.&nbsp;https://inhighvisibility.org/ In its various efforts, High Visibility welcomes a diverse range of art works, practices, and histories. Our collaborative work aims to spark a national reappraisal of the critical and cultural dynamics within contemporary visual art and socially-engaged practice in rural and Indigenous communities – and provide much needed cultural context in a moment of heightened anxiety on the rural-urban divide.High Visibility launched with an exhibition at the Plains Art Museum, a gathering of artists, artisans, and culture bearers that was on view through May 30, 2021. This exhibition also coincided with the launch of the High Visibility podcast and the wide distribution of the first issue of the free High Visibility newspaper. Many thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support. The American Bottom Project <img width="1600" height="1071" width_o="1600" height_o="1071" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4f77c6eaac063f0e5ca2ae69422aba6ac6c0534a5d1db661720195691216516e/AB.5858_JenniferColten-1600x1071.jpg" data-mid="126205293" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4f77c6eaac063f0e5ca2ae69422aba6ac6c0534a5d1db661720195691216516e/AB.5858_JenniferColten-1600x1071.jpg" />City Hall in Sauget, IL; photograph: AB.5858, Jennifer Colten Through both an extensive digital resource and The American Bottom Gazette regional print publication, The American Bottom Project invites scholars, activists, artists, educators, and citizens to collaborate towards telling the complicated history of the 65-mile Mississippi River floodplain to the east of St. Louis. Begun in 2013, this work has recently been featured in Art in America and is the supported by Illinois Humanities and a Divided City grant via the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. I’m grateful to be collaborating with Jesse Vogler, Jennifer Colten, and Alissa Blatter in this longterm work.http://theamericanbottom.org/ In 2019, Jesse Vogler and I co-convened Anthropocene Vernacular, a collaborative project supported by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and undertaken with The Luminary and a range of artists, curators, scholars, and activists. This initative shared the multigenerational story of how the St. Louis region’s people have lived, cultivated and embodied their everyday culture in the midst of the convergence of social, environmental and economic forces found along this landscape.https://www.anthropocene-curriculum.org/project/mississippi/field-stations/field-station-3-anthropocene-vernacular/ Public Launch <img width="2048" height="1391" width_o="2048" height_o="1391" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/62a8430e905ff74eb4b5478829e32f27a9ba3c53702ae8e4ae74b1b82f3f70e2/DSC_0047_FB.jpg" data-mid="126208539" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/62a8430e905ff74eb4b5478829e32f27a9ba3c53702ae8e4ae74b1b82f3f70e2/DSC_0047_FB.jpg" />Dreaming Under A Cedar Tree installation, performance, and meal;&nbsp;Sharon Mansur; photograph by Sydney Swanson Operated from 2016 through April of 2020, Public Launch was a collaborative community space located in a downtown storefront in Keoxa / Winona, Minnesota.&nbsp; This space and its many intersecting communities co-created a unique, equitable atmosphere for people to gather-- and for artists to offer programs, conversations, and exhibitions that, because of their direct conversations on race, class, gender, and sexuality, could not have been presented alongside each other anywhere else in Winona.Public Launch has hosted over 70 events and 12 exhibitions, with all programming free and open to everyone. This work included the launch of Ashley Hanson and the Department of Public Transformation’s public exhibition and the hosting of monthly One Million Cups entrepreneurial networking mornings. Exhibitions across these years included Mai'a Williams’ Bodies of the Desert poetry/video installation examining myth and the Black diaspora, Sharon Mansur's Cedar Tree Project examining Arab identities in Minnesota, a video collaboration with Project FINE sharing the stories of immigrants and refugees in the region, an examination of the stigmas and erasures encountered by individuals addressing mental health in Joy Davis Ripley's Visible/Invisible photography exhibition/engagement series, and musician Mike Munson's Winona Anthems project mixing music, photography, and storytelling to share the experiences of the community's youth skateboarding scene. I co-curated this space alongside artist Nathan Bauman and Brian Voerding, the Founder and Executive Director of Engage Winona. Our local work would not have been possible without the support of the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Local Practice <img width="2212" height="1659" width_o="2212" height_o="1659" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0939d40eee8a466c3749288aa6df7b8b9db4827174b809d47bee8ee258b51bd0/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-3.23.55-PM.png" data-mid="126231699" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0939d40eee8a466c3749288aa6df7b8b9db4827174b809d47bee8ee258b51bd0/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-3.23.55-PM.png" />Family Video, August 18, 2016; Matthew FluhartyI was commissioned by the Walker Art Center, to edit and contribute to a series of pieces meditating on the current conditions in the rural arts field. This offered an opportunity to reframe the accepted terminology around “rural” and “urban” and, instead, to focus on the idea of local practice, those the questions and relationships raised through deep, long-term, on-the-ground engagement with the particularities of place and community.https://walkerart.org/magazine/local-practice-mn-artists-guest-editor-matthew-fluharty Artists and writers featured in this series included Michele Anderson, Ashley Hanson, Bethany Lacktorin, Shanai Matteson, Nik Nerburn, Mary Rothlisberger, Mai’a Williams, and Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra. Many thanks as well to Fadi BouKaram for the use of his photograph in my closing reflection.&nbsp; SWITCH<img width="1306" height="870" width_o="1306" height_o="870" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c73ca1f5f7525e440fefd59091545dd099d810431c1c39070a7b2bda34a1e37d/switch-2-crop_2x.jpg" data-mid="126211088" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c73ca1f5f7525e440fefd59091545dd099d810431c1c39070a7b2bda34a1e37d/switch-2-crop_2x.jpg" />installation at the Iowa State Fairgrounds; M12 Studio This 2016 two-site installation encouraged visitors to draw connections between the history of rural Iowa and its contemporary agricultural landscape, and to explore new avenues for cultural connection and discourse between rural and urban spaces. An installation of archived materials related to Iowa horse culture was presented at the fair site while a video projection made from a show horse’s perspective was shown at the busy downtown Capital Square site.http://m12studio.org/switch &nbsp;I was grateful to be with my M12 Studio partners in creating this work and thankful for the support of the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation. video by&nbsp;Daniel Martinez Gonzalez The American Bottom exhibition<img width="3134" height="2017" width_o="3134" height_o="2017" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b9a41e7dcf7f441858844ca3c30d76d059c80c81b4c8da46bb0e99ed0c50b112/AmBotNationalCity.jpg" data-mid="126233858" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b9a41e7dcf7f441858844ca3c30d76d059c80c81b4c8da46bb0e99ed0c50b112/AmBotNationalCity.jpg" /> photograph, Matthew FluhartyAs part of the 2015 Show Up, Show Down series curated by Nancy Zastudil, Jesse Vogler and I exhibited a selection of photographs, alongside a presentations of stories and fieldwork, at Central Features gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This exhibition series included additional exhibitions by Sarah Kanouse, Lucy Lippard, and other individuals working at the intersection of visual arts and social practice. https://matthewfluharty.work/Writing-Speaking Wed, 01 Dec 2021 23:26:55 +0000 Matthew Fluharty https://matthewfluharty.work/Writing-Speaking Writing &amp; Speaking: National Gallery of Art: On the Corn Rooms <img width="2974" height="1564" width_o="2974" height_o="1564" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e0a8d1cac007e2c41de47ce26aa0fde84bd6b37d16e23c9b09e3f5233277a2b9/Screenshot-2024-04-25-at-1.57.08PM.png" data-mid="243916639" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e0a8d1cac007e2c41de47ce26aa0fde84bd6b37d16e23c9b09e3f5233277a2b9/Screenshot-2024-04-25-at-1.57.08PM.png" />I’m honored for my writing on Grant Wood’s Corn Room murals, and their surpising afterlife &amp; connections with contemporary non-urban art, to have been published by the National Gallery of Art. This piece was commissioned as part of the Gallery’s West to East series featuring artists, curators, and writers on “a storytelling journey across the nation unfolding, region by region, over the next few years.”It’s also a thrill for this piece to be accompanied by the extraordinary photography of Ackerman + Gruber. https://www.nga.gov/stories/west-to-east/artists-craft-their-own-visions-of-iowa.html I’m also grateful to have the opportunity to share some thoughts on the restored murals in this excellent piece by Alex V. Cipolle in the New York Times:https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/arts/design/grant-wood-corn-room-mural.html Color Field <img width="726" height="408" width_o="726" height_o="408" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/03ec4e1daf5348b010be0215a1e8d041a6124fa2cf9aa0fb7480fddb20626e09/Screen-Shot-2021-11-28-at-4.17.23-PM.png" data-mid="243916641" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/726/i/03ec4e1daf5348b010be0215a1e8d041a6124fa2cf9aa0fb7480fddb20626e09/Screen-Shot-2021-11-28-at-4.17.23-PM.png" /> This collection of poetry, essays, fieldwork, and photography will be published in 2026. Burn the Maps <img width="916" height="612" width_o="916" height_o="612" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e12a2dbe5332fe7a286a17ba7cab23d3a3759270dfd6b8c3e88148f9c016008f/burnthemapsillustration.gif" data-mid="243916646" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/916/i/e12a2dbe5332fe7a286a17ba7cab23d3a3759270dfd6b8c3e88148f9c016008f/burnthemapsillustration.gif" />Illustration by Emmet Byrne for Mn Artists and Walker Art Center This piece came togteher after the conclusion of my initial run of writing the Art of the Rural blog, and the completion of my dissertation on the idea of Rural Modernism at Washington University in St. Louis, during a time of personal transition and taking stock of the transdisciplinary conditions often underneath the center-periphery binary that often typifies “rural” and “urban.” https://mnartists.walkerart.org/burn-the-maps I’m grateful to Editor Susannah Schouweiler and the staff of Mn Artists and the Walker Art Center for this invitiation, which was presented as part of the convening Superscript: Arts Journalism and Criticism in a Digital Age. Further Information: <img width="5472" height="3080" width_o="5472" height_o="3080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/9eed4445da0690d2acafa400362e7f741c93b0ba0613bac89aabda92038059c4/IMG_4002.JPG" data-mid="126245386" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/9eed4445da0690d2acafa400362e7f741c93b0ba0613bac89aabda92038059c4/IMG_4002.JPG" />poem by Lorine Niedecker My writing and speaking efforts walk across the boundaries of poetry &amp; essay, fieldwork &amp; visioning, research &amp; lived experience -- in an effort to bridge the distances that often withold a deeper consideration of cultural, social, and geographic difference.&nbsp;My poems have appeared in the following magazines and platforms in the US: Beloit Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, Grist, Hudson Review, Kestrel, LIT (The New School), The Missouri Review and the Notre Dame Review; they have appeared in Europe in The Black Mountain Review, Cyphers, Fortnight, Metre, New Writer, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Portions of the long poem Hired Hand were released as a 7” vinyl recording with M12 Studio by Last Chance Press, included alongside my contributions in An Equine Anthology, a M12 publication supported by the Santa Fe Art Institute and later presented in expanded form in The Breaking Ring installation at the Sante Fe Center for Contemporary Arts.&nbsp; My essays have appeared have been published by The Rattling Wall (PEN Center), MN Artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Gallery of Art, Temporary Art Review, and the Walker Art Center Reader. Pieces have been included within To Make a Public: Temporary Art Review 2011-2016 and A Decade of Country Hits: Art of the Rural Frontier. A commissioned essay on contemporary non-urban art practice is forthcoming in early 2024 with the National Gallery of Art.&nbsp; I was honored to participate in the Rural Cultural Wealth Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts-funded lab organized by the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Iowa.&nbsp; The Lab created a literature review of arts and cultural scholarship focused on rural and Indian Country, and articulated the need for deeper academic, institutional, and practioner-focused engagement in this field.&nbsp; <img width="1750" height="1672" width_o="1750" height_o="1672" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c66621e231a3728ff3daa7b7121cc6cc78874ade36705d516daf7755420cd6fc/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-5.46.10-PM.png" data-mid="126245836" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c66621e231a3728ff3daa7b7121cc6cc78874ade36705d516daf7755420cd6fc/Screen-Shot-2021-12-01-at-5.46.10-PM.png" /> High Visibility exhibition newspaper Thanks to my collaborations with The American Bottom Project, the newspaper has become a primary form of focus for me, in how I think about publication, engagement, and knowledge sharing. I’m interested in how traditional web-based material can intersect with, and be challenged by, the kind of public responsibility a newspaper holds. There is an instructive leap between a highly researched website and map platform and a newspaper distributed to libraries, post-offices, diners, and all kinds of community institutions.&nbsp; This ethic continues with High Visibility, in the decision made by myself and the cuatorial staff of Plains Art Museum to forego the publication of a traditional exhibition catalog (and the benefits that format elicits in the arts field) in lieu of a free newpaper publication that could be widely printed and distributed in the region. As Spillway develops, and seeks to connect with communities across the&nbsp; geographic and cultural sweep of the Upper Mississippi River, these practices will evolve further. Throughout the arc of my writing, artwork, and direction of Art of the Rural, I’ve been deeply grateful for the chance to meet and exchange ideas with folks across the continent. That quality of beginner’s mind that I encoutner in my myself in these kinds of gatherings is a gift.I’ve been grateful to present my work in communities, universities, institutions, and convenings across the country. For video across these years, please see this 2015 Tedx talk and 2023 Minnesota PBS feature.&nbsp; Here’s an abbreviated selection of some of my speaking events and collaborative meetings over these years:“Rural Recharge: Patterns and Propositions,” Keynote with M12 Studio, Wyoming Arts Summit, October 2023.&nbsp;“An Undefined Present,” Lecture, Montanta State University, September 2023.“In Conversation with Richard Saxton,” Advancing Arts and Culture in Rural Communities, Western Arts Advocacy Network, Western States Art Federation, September 2022.“Whatever You Say, Say Nothing,” Keynote, Rural Environments Field School, July 2021.“New Middle: Arts and Community” Panel Discussion, Exhibit Columbus, October 2020.&nbsp;“Naming &amp; Claiming Our Rural–Urban Futures,” Keynote, Indiana University Center for Rural Engagement annual conference, October 2020. “The Great Empty,” Keynote address, Beaux Arts convocation, North Dakota State University, May 2020. “The Poetry of Rural Place,” Panel Conversation, National Endowment for the Arts event with the United States Poet Laureate, March 2020.“New Developments in Rural Arts and Culture,” Panel Discussion, Academy of Arts and Sciences, December 2019.&nbsp;“Communities, Culture, and Place,” Keynote,&nbsp; Arkansas State, May 2019. “Monsanto Town,” presentation with Jennifer Colten at Anthropocene River convening, St. Louis, March 2019.&nbsp; “Rural Creative Community Development,” Panel Presentation, National Association of Counties conference, March 2019 Rural Funders’ Breakfast conversation, Heartland Summit, Bentonville, October 2018.&nbsp; Keynote Address, Indiana Arts Homecoming convening, Indianapolis, October 2017. “View from the Field: Rural Arts &amp; Culture in 2017,” Panel Presentation, Council on Foundations national convening, May 2017.“Walking the Rural-Urban Field,” panel presentation, Open Engagement conference, Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago, April 2017.“Changing the Face of Rural,” Tedx talk, Gull Lake, Minnesota, November 2015.“What is our Common Field?,” panel conversation, Common Field convening, Minneapolis, October 2015.“The Art of the Rural: Creating Thriving Places, Beyond the City,” Fermentation Fest, Reedsburg, Wisconsin, October 2014.“The Rural-Urban Continuum,” Central Time Centric: Art and Social Practice in the Midwest, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, September 2014. M12 Reading and Lecture Tour for A Decade of Country Hits: Art on the Rural Frontier publication, September 2014; venues included The Hope School of Fine Arts, University of Indiana; Experimental Station, Chicago; Peck School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Indy Reads bookstore, Indianapolis; Clovene, Louisville; The Luminary, St. Louis. “Changing Dynamics of Rural Space,” National Council on the Arts meeting, with M12 Studio, Washington, D.C., June 2014. “Rural Innovation in Arts, Culture, and Heritage,” Rural Economic Development Forum, McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis, March 2014. Extension Reconsidered Initiative convening, Kettering Foundation and Imagining America university consortium, Dayton, Ohio, February 2014.“Ways of Being,” Hand-in-Glove convening, New Orleans, October 2013. “Interventions in Rural Space,” Chicago Cultural Center , August 2013.“Questioning the Rural Arts,” The Rural Arts and Culture Summit, University of Minnesota-Morris, June 2013. National Rural Arts Working Group Convening, August 2012. (Co-Founder)“Re-Thinking the Rural Arts,” Rustbelt to the Artist Belt conference, St. Louis, April 2012.The BIG FEED, Yuma, Colorado, M12 Studio October 2011. "Important Places, Important Times: Claiming a Rural Modernism," Rural Sociology Society Annual Meeting, Boise, Idaho, July 2011. https://matthewfluharty.work/M12-Studio Tue, 04 Jan 2022 15:09:58 +0000 Matthew Fluharty https://matthewfluharty.work/M12-Studio M12 Studio: <img width="1162" height="774" width_o="1162" height_o="774" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/803c050e83390f80666fabab7225485359b8526ff3c7f2001dfd074de6857c73/autryperformance_48-crop_2x.jpg" data-mid="128980536" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/803c050e83390f80666fabab7225485359b8526ff3c7f2001dfd074de6857c73/autryperformance_48-crop_2x.jpg" />M12 performance at The Autry Museum of the American West M12 is a group of award-winning artists, researchers, and writers primarily known for art projects that explore public space, rural cultures and landscapes.&nbsp;M12 creates artworks, research projects, and education initiatives centered around context and place. The studio blends multiple fields, allowing research, fieldwork, design, and site-specific sculpture to merge.https://m12studio.org/ Projects have appeared in publications such as&nbsp;The Rural: Documents of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London, (2019, MIT Press), Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West (2014, The New Press, Lucy R. Lippard) and What is a Western? (2019, Oklahoma University Press, Josh Garrett-Davis).&nbsp;M12 has been recipients of numerous regional and national grant awards, commissions, and residencies. I’m grateful to have been a part of M12 since 2012, and I am excited about forthcoming longterm collaborations with the people, communities, and cultures of the High Plains region.&nbsp; https://matthewfluharty.work/About Tue, 30 Nov 2021 16:31:25 +0000 Matthew Fluharty https://matthewfluharty.work/About About: Matthew Fluharty is a writer, curator, and caretaker whose work meditates on land, cultures, and communities. Matthew is the Executive Director of Art of the Rural, a member of M12 Studio, and a novice priest and assistant teacher in the Zen Garland Order. He currently lives in Winona, Minnesota, a town located within Dakota homelands along the Mississippi River. •••••Born into a seventh-generation farming family of Irish descent in Appalachia, Matthew’s upbringing instilled a belief that everyday, multigenerational knowledge can teach us about where have been, where we are, and where we might be going. Those lessons led him on a path to serve as a Novice Priest in the&nbsp;Zen Garland Order, a community that is a part of what’s known as the Socially Engaged Buddhist movement. Matthew is the Founder and Executive Director of Art of the Rural, a member of M12 Studio, and faculty on the Rural Environments Field School. His work flows between the fields of art, design, humanities, policy, and community development. Matthew was a founding member of Common Field, a national network of independent art spaces and organizers. He has previously served on the boards of the Wormfarm Institute, Visit Winona, and the Steering Committee for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design. He was also a cohort member in National Arts Strategies’ Chief Executive Program.&nbsp;His poetry has been published widely, and his fieldwork with his colleagues in the American Bottom region of the Mississippi River has been featured in Art in America. His essays have been published by the National Gallery of Art, Walker Art Center, and elsewhere. Matthew is the organizing curator for High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, a longterm collaboration with the Plains Art Museum. He recently received a Curatorial Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for this ongoing work. Matthew holds a PhD in Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, a Masters in Literature from Boston College, a Masters in Creative Writing from Poet’s House/Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and a Bachelors in Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Journalism from Beloit College. He is the co-editor of anthology Breaking the Skin: 21st Century Irish Poetry&nbsp;and he has contributed to the&nbsp;Éire-Ireland journal.&nbsp; Matthew has previously held a Research Fellow position with the Sam Fox School for Design and Visual Arts and the Department of American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, and he was a founding member of the Rural Cultural Wealth Lab within the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Iowa.&nbsp;