Moving the Margins welcomes its newest artist-in-residence, Sarah Crooks, who is debuting The Long Way(t) Home at The Corner Gallery.
As a multidisciplinary eco-feminist artist who nurtures a sense of belonging, Crooks blends art with environmental science, reimagining our relationship with the flora and fauna of home. Traditional art forms and embodied practices like walking and deep listening create biophilic installations, stories and community, while dissolving boundaries between self and other. Rooted in reciprocity and creative play, her work has been exhibited and collected by healing centers, public libraries and private individuals for more than 30 years.
“I have begun to think about home as a relational practice where our gifts are offered and received. A house does not necessarily provide a home nor does a place,” says Crooks. “Yet home can be an emotion that we learn to carry with us. To be emplaced is in part an active practice and an opportunity to rest. Based on trust I am here. I am held. I forget my small self. I expand. This embodied sense of belonging is enlivened by and synchronized with the surrounding body of the earth and other dwelling bodies through remembering our reciprocity.”
The Jacksonville community is invited to participate in her journey, The Long Way(t) Home, where her current artwork and research centers on ritual and remembrance, the sense of touch, displacement and attachment.
Moving the Margins’ Artist-in-Residence program has seen unprecedented success. This groundbreaking program, now in its third year, continues to serve as an incubator for artists taking on contemporary themes of justice, leveraging art as a launchpad for dialogue. Each residency allows the artist to collaborate with local change agents to create accessible, immersive art installations and public programming that spark conversation and catalyze our community toward action.
Through a partnership with The Jessie, Crooks’ work is the latest in a series of artist residency projects curated by Moving the Margins and displayed in The Corner Gallery at 40 E. Adams St. in Jacksonville, Fla. The Long Way(t) Home will run May 25, 2024, through Aug. 21, 2024. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment on weekends and after hours. Additional programming facilitated by Moving the Margins occurs monthly at The Corner Gallery and The Jessie.
About Moving the Margins
Moving the Margins’ Artist-in-Residence is a cultural program fiscally sponsored by 904WARD. It represents their mission to foster an environment that builds bridges by providing dialogue and conversations for the Jacksonville community to combat racism.
About the Artist
Informed by a deep sense of ecology, Crooks creates multidisciplinary site-specific installations and artifacts blending environmental science with spiritual evolution. These mythopoetic stories of transformation model empathy while shifting our culture of domination to reciprocity. By healing our sense of separation from the living world, we remember our wholeness.
Certified as a Florida Master Naturalist in 2014, and trained as a botanical illustrator at the New York Botanical Gardens (1997-99), her work celebrates the seen and unseen. Rooted in wonder, handwork becomes meditation where sewing, drawing and printmaking transforms humble materials into immersive experiences.
Empowering people of all ages to cultivate their sense of place, she guides dynamic workshops activating all of our senses through deep creative play. Her award-winning curriculum for arts integration in the K-12 classroom and beyond include master artist residencies with Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, the Museum of Science and History and Duval County Public Schools.
About the Partners
Jessie Ball DuPont Center, known as The Jessie, brings together the community and its nonprofits in a setting that appreciates our rich history while responding to the demands of today. Housed in one of Jacksonville’s architectural jewels — the former Haydon Burns Library — The Jessie provides offices for nonprofits and work and gathering spaces for the community in an energy-efficient environment with state-of-the-art technology.
904WARD began in 2015 with a small group of friends who came together to talk openly, challenge each other, support each other, and take action together to build a more inclusive Jacksonville. This diverse group is composed of people committed to creating a community of inclusion for all of Jacksonville’s residents. It takes pride in mobilizing thousands of volunteers yearly to create racial healing and equity.
