Friday July 5 — Saturday July 27

Natural Disasters

by Sage Dawson

Natural Disasters examines the history of cartographic rendering: mapping to investigate the distinct identities of spaces, dwelling rights, and contemporary perspectives of nostalgia. The work draws from housing rights research in India, radical cartography projects, and phenomenological approaches to documenting abandoned and destroyed sites. Most of the burned out homes, abandoned objects, and neighborhoods explored, such as the disparate Summerville district of Augusta, Georgia, raise issues nearly invisible to the communities within which they reside. Natural Disasters focuses on Summerville, exploring housing inequalities within the hilltop neighborhood, as well as the subtropical environment responsible for many blighted homes and crumbling architecture. In contrast to this decay is what remains of these homes and the objects found within: dust and mildew collect atop obsolete technologies, peeling tile, furniture, and architectural remnants. The work examines the production and destruction of space, relying heavily on ambiguity and hyperbole, and its larger impact on those who encounter it.

Sage will also present an exhibition catalog with an essay by Laura Mallonee and two poems by Andrew Deloss Eaton. Laura is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, and Andrew Deloss Eaton currently lives in Belfast.

Sage’s work has been featured in From Here to There published by Princeton Architectural Press and in Elephant Magazine. She’s recently exhibited at the International Print Center New York, the University of Pennsylvania, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, and Work Detroit. Sage holds an MFA in printmaking from the University of New Mexico, and a BFA from Missouri State University. She writes at Printeresting, an online authority on all things print-related, where she reviews exhibitions and interviews fine art presses in the US. She also contributes to Temporary Art Review, an online publication of contemporary art criticism highlighting alternative art communities.