Category: 2016

This Road Leads to Nowhere: Pierre Punk. Last Chance Press and Jap Sam Books. 254-page field book and 7” vinyl record.

This Road Leads to Nowhere: Pierre Punk brings together notes, lyrics, posters, and personal reflections from a music scene that flourished in small-town South Dakota from the early 90’s through 2010. Merging the tradition of DIY punk publications and regional travel guides, the book sings an unsung hymn of American underground culture. This Road Leads to Nowhere includes writings and images from Pierre community members, musicians who traveled through and played in the town, and kindred spirits from similar scenes further afield.

“We didn’t dress the same. We didn’t like all the same music. We didn’t know all the same people. But if you’re a freak in a fearful hick town where no freaks are welcome, you keep ties. You meet anyone who doesn’t t the mold, and you keep them on your radar. Or else you just fall off. You need somebody to be nobody with.”

This Road Leads to Nowhere: Pierre Punk 7” Vinyl Record
A side: release fall 2017
B side: release fall 2017

Edited by Josh Garrett-Davis

Available for purchase in mercantile

SWITCH Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation. Iowa State Fairgrounds and Capital Square, Des Moines, Iowa. 2016.

This 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. The following poem was featured prominently at both sites.

Switch by Seán Ó Ríordáin
“Gwawnowwdat,” said Turnbull, “and take a good look
      at the pain in a horse’s eyes.
If you’d a pair of dragging hooves on you, it’s short work
      they’d make of the smile on your face.”
You could see that he understood, and his fellow-feeling
      for the pain in the horse’s eyes;
and that dwelling on it so long he’d finally stolen
      into the innermost space
of   the horse’s pain that I saw, too, trying to plumb
     the depths of  pain that it felt;
until it was Turnbull’s eyes I saw starting out from
     that suffering horse’s pelt.
I looked at Turnbull and saw set under his brow
      as I looked him up and down twice
the two, too-big eyes that were speechless with sorrow:
      the horse’s eyes.

The Breaking Ring. The Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico. 2016. Installation, size variable.

The Breaking Ring ties together architectural and social aspects of wild horse culture in the American West. The installation includes a 24-foot breaking ring (gentling ring, round pen, etc.) made from regional hand-peeled Aspen logs. The ring hosts a diverse and carefully choreographed selection of public programs throughout the duration of the exhibition. Some of these include contemporary dance performances, qigong sessions, poetry readings, and community mahjong gatherings. The ring provides an ideal form to explore connective cultural links and foster activities centered around the horse breaking ring as a larger metaphor. Surrounded by the pages of An Equine Anthology (M12, Last Chance Press, 2015), The Breaking Ring faces all sides of wild horse politics and invites contemplation on social crossovers.