Jordan Weber
How do we live independently of systems that are unsustainable for our societal whole and live towards communal empowerment? If a legacy of violence against the land threatens violence against the bodies that should be nourished and supported by it, how can we best respond? When heritage speaks to survival despite ongoing structural disadvantage what art objects can we build now, that our descendants will thrive from?
Using utilitarian art objects, I produce social sculptures focused on unrestricting movements to collectively transform community landscapes that face socio-environmental racism against land and body. The structures are built collaboratively to fit the programming and daily lives of individual communities, drawing us toward inclusive constructs where sculpture and acting upon one’s immediate environment are related practices for alternative urbanisms.
kNOw Space 2018, Des Moines, IA
kNOw Space is a portable zendo that provides participants with empowering tools to build resilience into self and community while providing private safe spaces within oppressive constructs to reflect or decompress in natural settings. The project transforms a deer hunting “blind” or panopticon (prison guard tower) similar to Thomas Jefferson’s estate as seen on a nickel, into a transportable empowerment meditation space/Library with two-way mirrors that will be placed in public park areas as well as inner-city community gardens.
Mobile kNOw Space, 2017, Twin Cities, MN
The activation of the highly vetted public kNOw Space took place in the Twin Cities. It was opened in 2019 on a vacant lot between two community outreach non-profits in my home city of Des Moines. It hosts a BIPOC authored library provided by Spark Foundation, which provides free books to our public schools in Des Moines. A weekly Zazen meditation session also takes place within a connected community garden provided by the Des Moines Zen Center.
4MX Greenhouse, 2018, Malcon X Birthplace, Omaha, NE
4MX Greenhouse is a sculptural programmatic artwork supporting holistic community health. Built on the site of Malcolm X’s Omaha home at birth—now seventeen acres of native grassland embedded in a dense superfund-designated North Omaha—the greenhouse mimics the shape of Malcolm X’s first residential home. In collaboration with multiple community non-profit and private initiatives, it grows and distributes indigenous crops, exists as a community gathering space for art performances, hosts spiritual programs such as Zazen Meditation and Salah Prayer and offers urban sustainability workshops including information on how to request services from the EPA to replace highly contaminated soil.
Prototype for Poetry vs Rhetoric (deep roots), 2020, North Minneapolis, MN
A youth pop up, George Floyd stencil station provided by artist Seitu Jones taking place at the groundbreaking of the North Minneapolis Urban farm during the George Floyd protests.
Prototype for Poetry vs Rhetoric (deep roots), 2020, North Minneapolis, MN
The ground-breaking for Prototype for Poetry vs Rhetoric (deep roots) occurred during the height of George Floyd protests in Minneapolis a day after the 3rd Minneapolis police precinct was burned to the ground. The project, although in its infancy, acts as a counter tactic to industrial violence upon biodiverse lands within racially diverse communities offering land revitalization that re-constructs, replants, and recontextualizes polluted BIPOC spaces in North Minneapolis.
Prototype for Poetry vs Rhetoric (Stoop), 2020, St. Louis, MO
A prototype for Poetry vs Rhetoric (Stoop) is a community information and decompression stoop made in collaboration with Close the Workhouse Campaign/Arch City Defenders in St. Louis, MO. The stoop acts as a library with bookshelves hosting free handbooks on what to do when encountering police and who to call when being unlawfully arrested.