Megan Heeres: Tending Time
September 9 - October 7, 2023
Megan Heeres:
Tending Time
September 9 - October 7, 2023
Matéria is pleased to present Tending Time, a solo exhibition of all new works by Detroit-based artist Megan Heeres.
“A slab of concrete with its aggregate rock and lime, is a slice of earth’s ancient history from a time-scale that we can barely comprehend. The Japanese knotweed plants, all around Detroit, grow at a break-neck pace that can take down a 50-year-old tree in a matter of a few months. I create handmade paper pulp from plants, a deliberate and repetitive process that forces me to slow down. Neighborhoods in Detroit are contending with a new sense of time, as development that didn’t exist a decade ago is moving in and moving quickly, changing the places people have come to know.”
In Tending Time, Heeres explores these different timescales through materiality and form. The works in the exhibition are a reflection of the time she has spent at the gallery and the site that surrounds it.
Heeres engages in the act of tending as she gathers materials from the site and pays attention to the forms they may become. In the resulting works, she intends to honor the energy–-derived from both earthen and human efforts--that have shaped and have been shaped by a place. Heeres wants visitors to experience joy and wonder, and perhaps, to imagine a different future for how we live in our places with nature and one another.
Besides the Opening Reception with the artist on Saturday, September 9, 6-8 pm, this exhibition includes extensive additional programming:
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Saturday, September 16, 5 - 7 p.m.: concrète: a new dance. Performed by Biba Bell with dancers Christopher Woolfolk and Shannon White, and joined by musician-composer Matthew Daher.
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Saturday, September 30, 5 - 7 p.m.: Nature/Sound Walk with artist Megan Heeres
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Wednesday, October 4: Gallery Dinner "Tending Taste" with Coriander. Purchase Tickets
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Saturday, October 7, from 3 - 8 p.m.: Closing Block Party featuring Papermaking, Music, Food, and Art.
MEGAN HEERES
Megan Heeres's current practice is rooted in paper-making where her passion for experimentation, fascination with entropy and chance, and her love of science all meet. She works with unwanted plant species and the trash found where these plants reside to create art objects, installations, collaborations, and experiential workshops. Megan's art and professional endeavors have connected into a cooperative way of working with community both inside and outside of the studio. These collaborations engage with place, people, art and plants. They have ranged from large scale green space projects (Lafayette Greens Urban Garden, Beacon Park) that involve a wide array of stakeholders, to more intimate connections through the Invasive Paper Project and site-specific artworks.
Heeres participates in projects locally and nationally, most recently at Xenoform Labs in San Francisco and the Broad Art Lab at Michigan State University. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, Georgia, the Michele Schara Residency at the Brightmoor Makerspace in Detroit, the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, and the Santa Fe Art Institute and Women’s International Study Center in New Mexico. Megan Heeres graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art with a Master's of Fine Art in 2009 and from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a Bachelor's of Art in 2002.