2005

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a collaboration with         Professor Priscilla Briggs         Gustavus Adolphus College         St. Peter, MN Phrases and symbols will comment on the effect of the corporate world's production and progress on the small businesses/residential/ community life in this area of Minnesota.  Gustavus Adolphus College is about 1 hour away from the Mall of America. Supercenters, shopping malls, Wal-Mart, all of these things have impacted the community, or non-community. How has the landscape or the community been affected by these places in regards to the construction of roads and housing tracts?  We are interested in exploring the impact places like this have made on Minnesota business districts.  In this project, we are manipulating the design styles of corporate signage and adapting them to landscapes where they normally would not be found. Due to the distance between the artists and the students, most of the preliminary research will be carried out by student teams and reported via the internet.  Each of the five teams is responsible for a particular site which gives us a total of 5 locations to work with. It is each team's responsibility to discover the sites. They will report to the artists with research on particular communities that signify present or past dependence on small businesses.  From the material the students gather, the artists will sort through it and find instances of relevant iconic phrases that prompt visual and/or poetic metaphor. The plan is to make at least 5 different photographs that incorporate fictitious landscape & portraiture.

Links to Fictitious Landscape Portrait Sites: Red Owl Grocery Parking Lot / Lucky Theater Site Honeymeade / Cenex Vegetable Oil Spill Site Kasota Prairie / UNIMIN Mining Site Dakota Reconciliation Site Green Giant Site

Press Links: Gustavus Adolphus College News: Fictitious Landscapes Come to Gustavus

Contact TireFire Artists: Mary Carothers carothers@louisville.edu Sue Wrbican: Sue.Wrbican@verison.net Tire Fire Website www.tirefire.info

Public Lecture: Collaborations in Contemporary Art Mary Carothers & Sue Wrbican Gustavus Adolphus College Department of Fine Art April 25, 2005 2:30 pm

Campus Visit: Mary Carothers & Sue Wrbican Gustavus Adolphus College Visiting Artists April 21 - 25

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