a “Little Bird” flies over Fairfield

In early February 2020, artist Tia Simone Gardner made a quick trip to Alabama to continue work on her developing book project. Gardner is researching four homes and multiple communities that were inhabited by her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. The artist, mother-collaborator Jackie Gardener, and FAA-licensed drone pilot Jay Whitson walked boundaries and sites in Fairfield and Midfield including Jackie Gardener’s current home, municipal borders intersecting Western Hills Mall, Miles College and its neighbor the US Steel Flintridge Buildings.

Gardner states of housing, “As a space and a place that takes on all of the living that occurs in proximity to it, not just the physicality of its interiors and exteriors, the house must be thought of as in relation to design and political economy, particularly in relationship to the history of housing in the U.S.”

Gardner is a mixed media artist working in methods of appropriation and installation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA from the University of Alabama.

Gardner’s project is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

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