TOPEKA - The Center for Kansas Studies at Washburn University will host its annual Kansas Day lecture virtually on Friday, January 29 at 4 p.m.
The free event will be hosted via Zoom. To register, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kansas-day-lecture-a-conversation-with-photographers-tickets-135567115893?keep_tld=1&mc_cid=d5331c58a3&mc_eid=UNIQID
Photographers Lori Nix, a native of Norton, Kathleen Gerber and Philip Heying will present their photographic work and participate in a panel discussing their work, as well as common threads and concerns within their artistic practices.
The conversation will be moderated by Danielle C. Head, associate professor of photography / co-director for the Center for Kansas Studies and Dr. Vanessa Steinroetter, associate professor and chair department of English / co-director for the Center for Kansas Studies.
Nix and Gerber are Brooklyn-based artists who create elaborate dioramas and miniatures captured in photographs which depict a future in which man-made environments have been emptied of human inhabitants and reclaimed by nature.
Nix, who grew up in western Kansas, channels a fascination with natural disasters she experienced as a child. Their collaborative work is included in major collections such as The Smithsonian Art Museum, Washington D.C., The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston Texas, and the Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence Kan.
The duo has also illustrated stories for numerous magazines including The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, O Magazine, Wired and New York Magazine. Learn more at http://www.lorinix.net
Heying is a photographer living in Matfield Green, Kan., born in 1959 in Kansas City, Mo. During his college days in Lawrence, he was introduced to William S. Burroughs and embarked on a friendship which lasted until Burroughsʼs death in 1997. Burroughs showed him how art could affect real change, how it could influence human perception and cultural patterns.
He recently completed work on A Visual Archaeology of the Anthropocene from Eastern Kansas to the High Plains, a project addressing the extraordinary power and consequences of human influence on the ecology of his home region. His work is included in major collections such as The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mo. and the Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence Kan. Learn more at https://philipheying.com
The annual Kansas Day Presentation is hosted and funded by the Center for Kansas Studies and Washburn University’s Mulvane Art Museum, with additional support from the Washburn University Art Department and WUmester 2021.
WUmester is an annual event intended to foster a university-wide conversation on a diversity-related topic that will change each spring semester. The topic for WUmester 2021 is sustainability.