"A Welcoming Place by Ariel René Jackson is a film-based exhibition that contemplates what it might look like to forecast the welcoming status of a place. Forecasting, the artist argues, is the product of “taking temperature” which includes gathering individual testimonies throughout an area. These testimonies can be understood as shared collective knowledge and data of warnings and affirmations relative to the history of systemic violence in that place. The exhibition weaves interviews, research, image, video, animation, and sculpture to deliver a poetic visualization of shared knowledge about East Austin. The weather balloon’s purpose is to carry an instrument called a radiosonde to collect data and send it back. In the exhibition, Jackson uses this balloon as a metaphor for gathered testimonials, a cultural technology to sense and detect the climate of a situation or space. The artist repurposes the term “technology”, drawing meaning from its etymological source, techne, which is Greek for art and craft. The craft in Jackson’s exhibition lies in the generations of skilled observation within black and brown communities, warning each other when sociological danger is near, especially when it isn’t entirely visible. Despite press suggesting Austin to be one of the top locations for black and brown professionals, the city’s historically black and brown community on the east side continues to be affected by gentrification.

Artist bio: Ariel René Jackson is a Black film-based artist whose practice considers land and landscape as sites of internal representation. Themes of transformation are embedded in their interest and application of repurposed imagery and objects, video, sound, and performance. Exploring how culture is inherited, Jackson modifies familial and antique farming, household, and educational tools and furniture, hacking each object’s purpose and meaning with nature-based material and weather based icons. They were born and raised in Louisiana with their maternal family who descend from generations of farmers. Jackson currently lives and works in Austin, TX where they teach foundation courses at Texas State University. Jackson is an alum of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019), Royal College of Art Exchange Program (2018), and The Cooper Union (2013). Their work has been shown nationally at various galleries and institutions such as the Dallas Contemporary (2021); Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle (2021); Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans (2018); Depaul Art Museum, Chicago (2018); Rhode Island School of Design Museum (2017); and Studio Museum in Harlem (2016). Exhibition Dates: January 15th - March 3rd, 2022. "