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Abbey Meaker



Motherhouse
Floodplains
Star Island




Information
Projects




Bio


artist
writer
publisher
researcher
archivist

Using analog materials to create pictures and films Abbey Meaker’s work centers the landscape and place, a means of connecting with and bringing into focus uncanny and intangible qualities of natural environments and the interiors of historic sites. Are these invisible yet felt qualities inherent to a place, or can one's interiority inform the feeling there? Does this sense have an aesthetic? Can it become part of the piciture, having been absorbed by photographic emulsion, taking on material form? The particular details of a space-its dust, history, and atmosphere-are forever bound to film grain. Together they become an artifact, a trace, a ghost of an experience of time and a witness to the exposed sunlight that ‘happened’ before. When energy, light, and matter come together, these invisible phenomena can be seen.

Meaker’s writing and publishing projects also focus on these themes with essays on the work of Michelle Stewart, Agnes Dense, Sir Steve McQueen, and books about bodies of water, floodplain forests, and weather phenomena.

In November 2019, Meaker founded Artist Field, a curatorial platform for research-based projects that engage with the environment. She most recently co-founded Another Earth with Estefania Puerta, a publishing project interested in unique perspectives and ideas about natural environments, science fiction, psychoanalysis, and analog processes.

In 2015 Meaker co-founded Overnight Projects with Sarah O’ Donnell and served as Director of Exhibitions for its duration (2015-2019). Overnight Projects was an exhibition concept that organized experiential installations in revolving locations. Notable past sites included an 1800s orphanage, a defunct coal-plant, a 1950s lakeside motel, an air stream which served as an itinerant library, and a cornfield on the cusp of reverting back to a wetland. Within five years Overnight Projects organized 13 exhibitions of regionally and internationally-based artists.

She is Studio Director for the artist Richard Erdman in Williston, Vermont and Carrara, Italy. 2007-present.

Curatorial


Founder of Artist Field, a platform for research-based artworks, projects, and experiences that respond to and engage with natural environments.

Co-Founder of Another Earth, an independent publishing project based in Vermont; founded by artists Estefania Puerta and Abbey Meaker. We make artist books and ephemera in limited editions and believe in printed matter as a transporting, material space for experiencing art, ideas, and visual narratives.  Another Earth supports artists working in a broad range of media with a focus on print and digital matter, as well as experimental sound works on tape.

Co-founded and directed Overnight Projects, 2015-2019, a curatorial concept that organized experiential installations and idea-driven artworks and events in revolving locations, including transitional spaces and traditional gallery settings. Notable past sites included an 1800s orphanage, a defunct coal-plant, a 1950s lakeside motel, shipping containers, an air stream which served as an itinerant library, and a cornfield on the cusp of reverting back to a wetland. Within five years Overnight Projects organized 13 exhibitions of regionally and internationally-based artists.

  • Land Chapters, June 2021: Land Chapters brings together 16 artists and writers to respond to natural environments through land-based installation, text, photography, and sound. The show will be presented in three chapters: installations scattered on a 40 acre property in Richmond, Vermont, an artist book featuring essays, scores, photographs, and installation documentation, as well as a tape of field recordings and compositions made in response to the artists’ surroundings.

  • Liminal States, August 2019: In Liminal States: What Were Some of the Things You Missed from Home?, artists Maya Jeffereis and Elliott Katz have collaborated on a two-channel video installation and itinerant library that examines the longstanding history of separating families and incarcerating minorities in the United States.

  • Katya Grohkovsky: Privately Owned, June-July 2019: A mixed-media, installation based solo exhibition of NYC-based artist-curator Katya Grohkovsky at the Karma Birdhouse Gallery, Burlington, Vermont.

  • Maize Meditation, October 2018: An archival installation on the cultivation of corn by NYC-based artist Amanda Turner Pohan, McCarthy Art Gallery, Colchester, Vermont.

  • From Away, July 2018: Site-specific installations by Vermont-based artists Wren Kitz, Angus McCullough, Sarah O Donnell, Charmaine Wheatley, and Mary Zompetti, South Hero, Vermont.

  • Daybooks, June 2018: Screening of a series of Jon Beacham’s silent 16mm films in an historic hayloft, Shelburne, Vermont.

  • She Feared Nothing, October 2017: Performance by Portland, Maine-based art collective Hi Tiger (Derek Jackson, Amandaconda, and Nicolette Antonett) in Winooski, Vermont.

  • Inversion, October 2017: Site-specific installation by Germany-based artist Viktoria Strecker at Champlain College Art Gallery.

  • Spurious Brood, June 2017: Outdoor installation of 200 Timex Watches in the tree branches of Burlington's City Hall Park by Virginia-based Christopher Mahonski, Burlington, Vermont.

  • Fluorescent Light in Vacant Storefront, February 2017: A site-specific light installation by Vermont-based artist Chris Jeffrey, Winooski, Vermont

  • Modes of Conduction, August 2016: Site-specific installations by Germany-based artists Vesko Goesel, Peter Miller, and Viktoria Strecker at the Moran Plant, Burlington, Vermont.

  • Conceal/Reveal, February 2016: Interactive, video-based installation by Vermont-based artists Rebecca Weisman and Dana Heffern, Burlington, Vermont.

  • Triangle, Circle, Square, January 2016: Three channel video installation by NYC-based artists Andrew Brehm and Jennifer Lauren Smith, Burlington, Vermont

  • An Order, August 2015: Site-specific installations by Vermont-based artists Sarah O Donnell, Wylie Garcia, Rebecca Weisman, and Mary Zompetti at former St. Joseph's Orphanage, Burlington, Vermont.

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