The Art of the City

WHEN SHANNON COLLIS MOVED to Baltimore’s Locust Point neighborhood 12 years ago, she was struck by the peninsula’s panorama of industry: marine terminals dotting the port, freight railways circling rowhomes and the iconic, aromatic Domino Sugar factory towering nearby. The multidisciplinary artist appreciated the contrast between her new city’s grit and the Canadian prairie town in which she grew up.

That theme of juxtaposition—urban industry and natural environment—anchors the associate professor of art’s newest installation, depicting Baltimore’s heavily industrial Curtis Bay neighborhood and Masonville Cove, a bucolic wildlife refuge 2 miles away. For a year, Collis and her collaborator, Liz Donadio, captured the pulse of those areas with video cameras and sound recorders, resulting in an immersive audiovisual exhibit set to open in April at the Pikesville Armory in Baltimore County.

Funded by an ArtsAMP grant from the university’s Arts for All initiative to support community-impact projects, “Resonant Site” projects moving images onto screens that will hang throughout the 30,000-square-foot space, accompanied by recordings of industrial machinery, trains, water and wind. The videos will portray the divergent landscapes in summer and winter, sometimes from a drone’s aerial view, revealing an ever-changing city.

Some of that tension lies in Curtis Bay, known for a coal export terminal that has polluted the community’s air. Through it, Collis explores how industry embeds into daily life.

Creating art in her adopted town brings more meaning to Collis’ work. “As you make sense of the world closer to home, you feel invested in its future,” she says.