Joan Dickinson an artist working in multiple forms––visual and performance art, writing, farming, environmental restoration––that follow multiple lines of inquiry: mythology, the confluence of home and land, autobiography as a resistance to history, encounters with site and weather, thresholds, and phenomenology. Under the HEX imprint, Dickinson has published twelve books on such topics as herbal lore and psychedelia, European witch burnings; tuning the human pulse; lake ringing; and, in collaboration with 18 other artists and writers, the interconnection of the world's waterways.
Mildred Hood is a 38-year veteran of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad [BNSF] working as a locomotive engineer primarily along the route beginning at the BNSF depot at 41st and Pulaski in Chicago and ending in Fort Madison, Iowa. Mildred hauls FAK [Freight All Kinds] except circus animals and recently retired to St. Louis and a second career as the theater manager for an historical society.
In 2006, Joan and Mildred met at a party and through friendship and an evolving series of conversations and activities––movement-based performance, video and audio field recordings, historical research, photography and writing––generated something like a collaboration that looks something like a palindrome with Mildred's train as the central mode of conveyance for wide-ranging ideas about narrative, place, nomenclature, travel, race and class, and freight. Coming in from the North––a performance in two parts and one installation––presents a portion of that collaboration.
Curated by Lou Mallozzi.
Joan Dickinson: writing, performance, & exhibition design
Mildred Hood: video and audio field recordings
Part 1: Listening for home with my ears I am listening.
Opening performance on Friday, September 30, 9pm
Exhibition hours:
Saturdays & Sundays from 1-5 pm
and Mondays at OPTION
or email info@ess.org to schedule an appointment.
Part 2: The October Horse Rites
Performance on Friday, October 14, 9pm
Exhibition hours:
Saturdays & Sundays from 1-5 pm and Mondays at OPTION
or email info@ess.org to schedule an appointment.
Photo ©2016 Joan Dickinson