Iowa Public Radio - Donor recognition

The Opportunity

Design a recognition of donors’ support for Iowa Public Radio’s “A Resounding Future” campaign. Install the work in the entrance foyers of their studios in Des Moines and Iowa City.

Watershed

by Thomas Fairlie Agran

Artist Statement

This work is based on Iowa Public Radio's ability to tell the personal, on the ground stories, and weave these threads together into the broader picture of living in Iowa.

That areal view of the Iowa landscape represented in this work expresses quite literally, but evocatively, the reach of public radio.

When zooming out on the Iowa landscape, the powerful impact of the watersheds on the composition of the landscape (in defiance of attempts to control it) becomes clear.

These serpentine, calligraphic marks on the landscape are beautiful, and the way they gather and snake their way through the state fit elegantly into this unique site that is the stairwell space.

A painterly landscape adds warmth and a human touch to the stairwell, feeling at once abstract and un-imposingly atmospheric from afar, but lively and energetic up close as one climbs the stairs and traverses the surface of the wall. Thinking about the watershed feels relevant looking towards IPR’s fundraising and visualization of community support.

Every trickle of water gathers into the state's sloughs and creeks, the central waterways, and eventually runs through the State Capitol as the Des Moines River parallels public radio’s model of tiered community support.