Tucked away in the heart of downtown Sioux Falls is the Sioux Falls Design Center; A facility that combines design, inspiration and creativity to help inform and engage the community on how design has a function in creating a better quality of life.
Every First Friday in March, June, September and December, SFDC hosts PechaKucha Night. PechaKucha Night is a night where thinkers and innovators present their ideas using 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each. Everyone is welcome to attend the event and encouraged to be inspired.
June’s PechaKucha presenter was Klaire Pearson, this month’s featured artist at SFDC. Pearson is a painter from Vermillion, SD who creates life-sized portraits of women with oil on canvas.
“My current series of paintings is an exploration of the expectations of femininity,” Pearson said during her PechaKucha presentation. “Strict gender roles are arbitrary, and as a result, this can be confusing particularly when they are contrasting expectations we’re supposed to meet.”
Klaire Pearson – Self Portrait
Pearson’s pieces feature vintage feminine clothing with provocative footwear. All of her canvases are created to be the actual size of the models in order to help communicate to viewers that they are works of art but they are also, actual women with real roles they have to deal with.
About a year ago, SFDC joined forces with OTA, a collaborative of creative catalysts and community change makers that connects the social and creative capital of SD, ND and MN, and AIGA, a professional membership organization for design, to revitalize our community pride by creating a flag to represent the city of Sioux Falls. An open call was issued to the public for probable submissions and they received 91 different designs. After an online voting process, they came to a conclusion and choose the unofficial city flag of Sioux Falls.
In effort of making it the “official” city flag of Sioux Falls, SDFC has been encouraging citizens of Sioux Falls to write to Mayor Mike Huether using postcards featuring the proposed flag.
To learn more about SDFC and the different ways you can get involved with their initiatives, visit their website here.
