Events
&
Happenings
Check here for art exhibitions, open studios, poetry readings and community events. To discuss a partnership, collaboration, or event, please contact Chelsea Herman at flightpathpress@gmail.com.
Palimpsest: Artist’s Books & Paper Works
Chelsea Herman
Dates: Monday, September 8, 2025 to Friday, October 24, 2025
Gallery Talk: Thursday, September 18, 2025 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm
Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, 801 Third Corso, Nebraska City, NE 68410 PHONE: 402.874.9600
What is the capacity of written, visual, and body language to animate connective spaces between humans, land, and versions of the self that, in response to narrative, have been forgotten, concealed, or desecrated? What can the body, sensory experience, and materiality reveal when language acts as a form of violent erasure? Palimpsest includes work that explores these questions through image, handmade paper pieces, text, and the structure of the book. Vine covered forest, prairie remnant, drainage ditch, and the remains of the artist’s family home burnt in a forest fire yield materials such as nettle and bittersweet fiber, cattail pollen, plant dyes, charcoal, and the ashes of books. Sound and other sensations experienced in places where human attempts to overwrite long engrained patterns of nature have occurred offer formal elements and metaphor for exploring human relationship, desire, and yearning. The process of scavenging such materials from ruined or compromised sites for the intended purpose of shared human expression provides an opportunity for imagining language as a tool for the sanctification, repair, or re-building of life-affirming inquiry and connection.
This exhibition began January 7th, 2024 with transcribed poems and text by four of the poets and writers who have been killed in Gaza since October 7th including:
Hiba Abu Nada (1991-2023)
Refaat Alareer (1979-2023)
Saleem Al-Naffar (1963-2023)
Nour al Din Hajjaj (1996-2023)
Text and images will be added to this exhibition on and ongoing basis at least until February 14th, 2024. Hopefully, the title of this exhibition will become obsolete before then.
CEASEFIRENOW Window Exhibition
This exhibition intends to amplify the global call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza by showcasing timely poems and the responsive visual language of artists who rely on poets for clarity, wonder, direction, insight, prophecy, beauty, truth, memory, and sagacity. It aims to promote conversation and thought around the questions: Which poets illuminate connections between ecocide and genocide? Which poems reveal how the crisis in Gaza connects to global issues and life outside of Gaza? What does our future look like beyond militarization? Which poets reflect for us the world we yearn for in the midst of this crisis?
To contribute a poem you have selected and/or your own original imagery that responds to a poem please contact flightpathpress@gmail.com.
Images that respond to the text already up in the window are welcome!
No to Coal; No to CO2 Pipelines Letter Signing Event
Free hand papermaking demos, a raffle, and light hors devours will be included. Attendees are invited to fill out brief comment cards provided by Iowa CCI opposing CO2 Pipelines and Coal Plants in Iowa. If you are interested in writing a longer letter expressing your opposition to Coal Plants and CO2 pipelines in Iowa, we'll have resources for that and lots of moral support on hand to help you get started! This event is free and open to the public
Friday August 11th 4pm-7pm
