Jess Gorman
Community Artist (Granite Falls, Minnesota)
Session: Bikes, Plants and Overlooked History: Artist-led Processes for Local Pride and Identity (Friday, 3:45 – 5:00pm)
Jess Gorman is a community artist using the arts to kickstart rural revival of community history and legacy. Her work is a mix of social practice and visual art using immersive community research. Her projects incorporate collaborators such as arts councils, businesses, historical societies, local nonprofits, and often employees multiple local artist with goals of creatively invigorating interest in rural stories, providing access to art in rural places and connecting modern communities with local legacy and each other. She doesn’t believe in strangers and her work product is sometimes a feeling or connection started first by enticing public participation with taboo talk, silly costumes, and pie.