Maura Jasper
SPOTLIGHT/SEARCH

December 15 — December 17, 2023

about searching, being found, and finding beauty exactly where you are

Opening Reception
Friday, December 15th | 6 — 9 PM

HOMECOMING | dinner with artist Maura Jasper, cook Grace Seibert, and sommelier Demian Hostetter
Saturday, December 16th | 6 — 9 PM
Look Back

Closing Reception | in song with Nathaniel Russell and Chris Vorhees
Sunday, December 17th | 1 — 4 PM

At the furthest edge of an open horizon with miles of cornfields, brownfields, commercial plazas, and quiet downtown streets, two beams of light are pointed into the night sky. They rotate slowly, piercing the darkness and serving as a beacon for anyone who seeks to find them.

Spotlight/Search is about searching, being found, and finding beauty exactly where you are.
It is for Muncie, Indiana and inspired by Middletown, as they are not the same. 

Spotlight/Search took place in Muncie, Indiana July 14th, 2023 for 158 minutes. 

This work is part of the Middletown Film Project by Maura Jasper, an ongoing body of work inspired by the sociological studies of Helen and Robert Lynd titled Middletown, and the six-part documentary series of the same name produced by Peter Davis for PBS in 1982. Middletown Film Project reflects on the collective identity of Muncie as a highly studied community. Comprised of moving image, sound recordings, photographs, participatory events, and drawing, this new body of work explores the concept of “Middletown” as a myth in contention.

Maura Jasper is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores popular culture, history and media as influences that inform our individual and collective sense of self. Her practice encompasses video, drawing, writing, performance, and participatory projects. She is best known for her visual collaborations with the band Dinosaur Jr. She has exhibited and screened work widely in the United States and abroad at venues such as the ICA Boston, Artists Space and Electronic Arts Intermix, in NY. Jasper is a recipient of the Sarah Jacobson Film Grant (2016), an IAC Individual Artist Grant (2016), and a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Film and Video (1998). Between 2008-2022 she lived in Muncie, Indiana, where she was a co-founder of the media collective Death Factory, Artistic Director of That One Film Festival, and an Associate Professor of Art at Ball State University. She currently lives and works in Troy, NY.