Recently Commonstudio founders Kim and Daniel, along with local collaborators Travis Neel and Erin Charpentier sat down with Natalie Hegert for an interview in Southwest Contemporary Magazine. Please see the full article HERE.
Commonstudio’s collaborative urban afforestation project “The Mesquite Mile” was recently exhibited in two gallery shows. The first was the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) in downtown Lubbock, TX. This eclectic group show focused on the many local, regional, and international artists that have exhibited at LHUCA since its opening in 1997. The show opened on October 7th, 2022 as a part of Lubbock’s first Friday art walk event. The project was also included in the 64th Annual Permian Basin Juried Art Exhibition held at the Ellen Noël Art Museum in Odessa, TX. Both shows featured a 15 minute documentary film depicting the migration of a mature Mesquite tree (Prosopis glandulosa) as it makes a journey from rural to urban context in west Texas. More context on the work, and the film itself can be viewed HERE.
This piece is one part of a larger, long-term project in collaboration with Travis Neel and Erin Charpentier, and is supported in part by an Interchange Grant in 2021. Interchange is a program of the Mid-America Arts Alliance and funded by the Mellon Foundation. In spring of 2022, MAAA held a three day convening in Kansas City, KS which brought us together with other Interchange grantees to discuss the nature of socially-engaged creative practice. We were honored to be a part of it and met some great new friends.
Commonstudio’s collaborative work featured in a group exhibition APPROXIMATING THESE ARID LANDS, which opened on March 28, 2022, and ran through May 2, 2022.
The Mesquite Mile is a multi-phase project based in Lubbock, TX. It aims to relocate regionally historic Mesquites (genus Prosopis) from commercial agricultural land (where they are maligned and removed) to Lubbock’s urban core (where they can be properly managed as assets). The project utilizes art as a tool to create a drought resistant shade canopy and public food forest—converting lawns and surplus space into interconnected rainwater harvesting earthworks that reimagine the narrative of this vital keystone species. See more about the work by visiting the Interchange Artist Grant website and our collaborators Travis Neel and Erin Charpentier at workabout.space/
Partners include:
Heart of Lubbock Neighborhood Association—The organization will assist in community outreach and education—helping to locate families and landlord participants.
Heart of Lubbock Community Gardeners—The Gardeners will donate time and will help with community outreach, education and food forest stewardship.
Texas Tech University School of Art will provide in-kind volunteer support through service-learning coursework, engaging students with the construction and maintenance of the food forest.
Texas Tech School of Landscape Architecture will provide in-kind support to the project by providing service-learning coursework, engaging students with the planning and design of food forest plantings.
See more on our instagram page for the project
Zoom fatigue notwithstanding, Commonstudio founders have had the pleasure of two pandemic presentations.
The first was an artist talk, given by Kim Karlsrud for Graceland Universtiy’s school of visual and Performing arts faculty and students. In it she shared recent work, including a recent gallery-based installation entitled Large and Round When Popped (2020). This work consisted of millions of popcorn kernals deployed in a sprawling field condition on the floor of the University’s Constance Gallery.
The second was a conference presentation for the TNOC Festival, organized by TheNatureofCities.com. Here we screened a 2017 short documentary film entitled 11 Palms to an audience of like-minded urban ecologists, designers, and artists. A lively discussion about the nature of care, and the care of nature followed.
Below, Kim Karlsrud discusses her process for a recent solo exhibition at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA). The show ran between December 4 – January 30, 2021 in the John F. Lott Gallery. Click HERE for more information.
Working in a recent visiting artist position at Graceland University, Commonstudio co-founder Kim Karlsrud completed a three month landscape installation, entitled “Large and Round When Popped” for the Constance Gallery in the Helene Center for the Visual Arts (October 2019-Febuary 2020).
Commonstudio’s Kim Karlsrud celebrates the opening of a group exhibition in Ann Arbor, MI.
We are thrilled to announce the recent completion of “Mow Town” an interactive storymap which explores the emergence and management of spontaneous urban vegetation in the city of Detroit.
Update on our recently built “Model Nallah” at Sowl lake! The current configuration compares the performance of terracotta rubble to granite gravel aggregate in the treatment of real urban wastewater from the surrounding city. Recently our team introduced dozens of Canna Lilies (Canna indica) into the system to assess planted vs. non-planted performance characteristics. It will also anticipate the possibility for multi-functional benefits of STRAINS interventions, capable of providing a range of visual interest and ecosystem services when introduced into open drains throughout the city.
Commonstudio Founders Kim and Daniel in collaboration with Firat Erdim, will be facilitating a three day workshop with 80 undergraduate architecture students at Iowa State University’s College of Design. Drawing upon insights from an ongoing experimental intervention currently in development in the periphery of Rome, the workshop is entitled Depaving Des Moines: Catalysts for Landscape Change in the Urban Watershed. Over the course of three days, students will be introduced to various landscape methodologies and have a unique opportunity to get their hands dirty in the field with a live de-paving demonstration project within the Fourmile Creek watershed of Des Moines.
Fast Track grant will enable cross-city research project to be added to UofM’s massive herbaria collection.