The Ferryman is a continuation of a decade's long investigation into long-form conceptual narrative to connect my artistic and curatorial practice. Begun in the 25 exhibition curatorial project called The Temperature through the artist-run gallery, The Neon Heater, The Ferryman picks up in the apocalyptic future where The Temperature left off.  'The Ferryman' is an archetype, an end times occupation, a title which can be embodied by many at once, the project becomes participatory, and while the individual stories can be connected or exist alone, they together build the 'new' world from the pieces of the old. A Ferryman views all things (objects, concepts, ideologies) before the 'end' as fodder for appropriation, archivization, or reclamation, cut off from their original contexts; the "end of the world" providing the Deleuzian body-without-organ, a blank plane of immanence to be organized and populated (or re-populated and re-organized) with new ways of co-existing. 

The Ferryman is a network. The concept of 'The Ferryman' is the connective fiber between several modes of production and dissemination.  'Ferryman', as one who shuttles between, is the common concern between a collection of zines, each created by a different artist through their own interpretation of their role as a ferryman; a socialist sci-fi reading group called Utopian Toolbox, a film club for apocalyptic cinema, a series of exhibitions or gatherings of Ferrymen; educational workshops and creative commons; the tools and media of expansion and recruitment for other thinkers, artists, and creatives into the project.  The Ferryman is iterative, cumulative, and collective, building the world within which it hopes to exist. From narrative fantasy it creates a possible future. Outside of the zines which collect the narrative, The Ferryman does not need to tangibly exist.  The Ferryman is the transmission of ideas, a project breeding projects.

For more on the Ferryman and Ian’s work

Film screenings at the CASP Satellite Gallery in Lubbock TX