Relevance of Place: Shannon Jackson in Conversation with Jeffrey Gibson

Relevance of Place is an online series of site-specific dialogues that explore the meaning of place at Tippet Rise Art Center. Located in Fishtail, Montana, Tippet Rise is anchored in the belief that art, music, architecture, and nature are intrinsic to the human experience, each making the others more powerful.
Guided by Shannon Jackson, Chair of the History of Art Department at UC-Berkeley and a scholar of socially-engaged art, Relevance of Place invites artists, architects, designers, and creative thinkers to engage in conversation about the ethics, aesthetics, and relevance of place. These conversations explore “place” as a global, local, and personal concept as well as “place” as it refers specifically to Tippet Rise. In individual interviews and group dialogues, each guest offers stories and insights from their own practice. Together, they reflect on the historic past and sustainable future of Tippet Rise-as an environmental site, as a wide-ranging art center, and as a creative gathering space.
Here, Shannon Jackson interviews cross-media artist Jeffrey Gibson about the arts, geological time, and the importance of indigenous perspectives, both in his practice and at Tippet Rise Art Center. In this episode, Gibson shares indigenous understandings of the land and the importance of a decolonial imagination in publicly-engaged art. Watch to hear him discuss his personal trajectory as an artist committed to aesthetic abstraction, to Native social movements, and to an increasingly collaborative practice amongst artists and local communities.
Filmed in May 2023.
Director and Producer: Eric Felipe-Barkin
Editor and Post-Production Supervisor: Claudia Tanney
Director of Photography: Robert Rudis
Drone Operator: Nathan Norby
Additional Camera Operator: Matthew Peccini
Sound Mixer: Monte Nickles
Sound Assistant: Jim Ruberto
Sound Editors: George Drabing Hicks, Kenny Kusiak
Dialogue Editor: Tom Efinger
Visit www.tippetrise.org/relevance-of-place