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Kansas Day Lecture | A Conversation with Photographers

The Center for Kansas Studies will host its annual Kansas Day lecture virtually over Zoom. Photographers Lori Nix, Kathleen Gerber, and Philip Heying will present their photographic work and participate in a panel discussing their work as well as common threads and concerns within their artistic practices.The conversation will be moderated by Danielle C. Head, Associate Professor of Photography / Co-Director for the Center for Kansas Studies and Dr. Vanessa Steinroetter, Associate Professor and Chair Department of English / Co-Director for the Center for Kansas Studies. Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber are Brooklyn-based artists who create elaborate dioramas and miniatures captured in photographs which depict a future in which man-made environments have been emptied of human inhabitants and reclaimed by nature. Nix, who grew up in western Kansas, channels a fascination with natural disasters she experienced as a child. Their collaborative work is included in major collections such as The Smithsonian Art Museum, Washington D.C., The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston TX, and the Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence KS. The duo has also illustrated stories for numerous magazines including The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, O Magazine, Wired, and New York Magazine. Learn more - http://www.lorinix.net

Philip Heying is a photographer living in Matfield Green, Kansas, born in 1959 in Kansas City, MO. During his college days in Lawrence, he was introduced to William S. Burroughs and embarked on a friendship which lasted until Burroughsʼs death in 1997. Burroughs showed him how art could effect real change, how it could influence human perception and cultural patterns. He recently completed work on A Visual Archaeology of the Anthropocene from Eastern Kansas to the High Plains, a project addressing the extraordinary power and consequences of human influence on the ecology of his home region. His work is included in major collections such as The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, MO and the Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence KS. Learn more - https://philipheying.com

The annual Kansas Day Lecture is hosted and funded by The Center for Kansas Studies and the Mulvane Art Museum, with additional support from the Washburn University Art Department and WUmester 2021.