Join us for the gallery opening reception of Trash Mapping: Weaving Our Communal Landscape featuring the art of Rowe Schnure, a weaver and facilitator based in Cincinnati

“Plastic soda bottles, chip bags, fast food containers, aluminum cans - these are all common parts of our communal landscapes, whether we notice them or not. The brands may vary, but the material—mostly plastics— remains the same. Can this waste, when collected and mapped, provide insights to the community interaction with place? This question guided my residency with Springboard for the Arts in Fergus Falls, MN. During the two weeks I was there in 2019 I mapped their downtown area by collecting street trash and breaking it down into weavings. Each weaving then represented one block of the area.

Weaving is a great metaphor for understanding the systems at play in our collective lives. The longitudinal threads, known as warp, can be seen as the grid in which our cities and roads are broken into. The weft, lateral thread, is the found trash that has been sorted/cleaned and deconstructed to weave a map visualizing human interaction with place.

I also facilitated trash weaving workshops as a way for community examination of place and product. These community weaving workshops used non-recyclable materials pulled from the local solid waste department. We wove in the shape of Otter Tail County, where the materials were found, which created a visual representation of the area and its byproduct waste. Through this process we questioned patterns of waste and cultivated a deeper understanding of the larger systems in the processing of waste.” -Rowe Schnure

The gallery opening will be held at Indigo Hippo on Friday, August 25th between 6-8 PM and their work will be on display through September 23rd.