Photo of 4MX Greenhouse, a sculptural programmatic artwork supporting holistic community health.
Photo of kNOw Space at J Gallery, a portable zendo that provides participants with empowering tools to build resilience into self and community, while providing private safe spaces within oppressive constructs to reflect or decompress in natural settings.
Image still from the activation of the public kNOw Space opened in 2019 on a vacant lot between two community outreach non-profits in Jordan Weber’s home city of Des Moines. Photo: Aaron Graves.
A prototype for Poetry vs Rhetoric (Stoop), a community information and decompression stoop made in collaboration with Close the Workhouse Campaign/Arch City Defenders in St. Louis, MO.
4MX Greenhouse
Jordan Weber’s visual art practice centers around environmental activism, often starting with researching events of social and environmental exploitation of Black, Indigenous, and brown bodies, and leading to the collaborative counteractions of building sculptural objects focused on unrestricting movements in oppressive landscapes.
Artist Bio4MX Greenhouse is a structural artwork supporting holistic community health, built on the site of the house where Malcolm X was born. The site, now 17 acres of grassland embedded in dense, Superfund-designated North Omaha, is where Jordan Weber has built the greenhouse based on the shape of Malcolm’s old house. The greenhouse will become a place for growing and distributing Indigenous crops, as well as offering spiritual and meditation healing programs. 4MX empowers participants to build resilience into their communities through direct action.
Jordan Weber
Des Moines, IA
Jordan Weber’s visual art practice centers around environmental activism, often starting with researching events of social and environmental exploitation of Black, Indigenous, and brown bodies, and leading to the collaborative counteractions of building sculptural objects focused on unrestricting movements in oppressive landscapes. In 2014 he spent a week participating in the Michael Brown Ferguson protests followed by movements in Oakland, CA. These events inspired his 2015 production of the American Dreamer series—a gutted police car transformed into a fruit garden where community members could interact with the environment. The work has led to major projects and fellowships such as A Blade of Grass, Joan Mitchell Award, a community POC healing program at Weeksville Heritage Center in collaboration with The Studio Museum Harlem, and an 18-month museum project residency at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN.