Thomas Jackson
Art Builds Community

As Thomas Jackson continues his installation practice, Collaborative Nature, interesting opportunities seem to find him. Recently, the Heritage and Arts Commission of the town of Tiburon CA reached out to Jackson to consider a public art project. Jackson suggested a 7-week long recycled fabric installation that would interact with the natural beauty of one of Tiburon's most beloved locations. What occurred was much more impactful than many public art projects because of the collaborative quality of Jackson's work. It brought the community together in both the "making" process and in the "engagement" process. With the help of many volunteers, Jackson installed throughout the landscape hundreds of wind-filled tulle puffs, invigorating this familiar stretch of land. Then the local residents were able to freely explore this beloved site with fresh eyes: a new visual prism. Unlike most of Thomas Jackson's installations which are solely created to be finished photographs, the Tiburon Collaborative Nature project was created as a communal outdoor experience. Both the landscape and the residents were enlivened and enhanced through Thomas Jackson's creative practice. Please take a moment to watch this magical video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD64HF1lDfw

Thomas Jackson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. After earning a B.A. in History from the College of Wooster, he spent his early career in New York City working first in book publishing, then as an editor and writer at Forbes Life magazine. An interest in photography books eventually led him to pick up a camera, shooting Garry Winogrand-inspired street scenes, then landscapes, and finally the installation work he does today. Self-taught as an artist, Jackson’s practice merges landscape photography, sculpture and kinetic art. His work has been exhibited widely, most recently at The Brooks Museum in Memphis, Tennessee and the Bolinas Museum in Bolinas, CA, and has been published in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere. Jackson was named one of the Critical Mass Top 50 in 2012, won the “installation/still-life” category of PDN’s The Curator award in 2013 and earned second place in CENTER's Curator's Choice Award in 2014.