Edge Habitat Materials

Chicago-based artist Helen Mirra creates works that explore the relationship between the natural world and the everyday lives and activities of the people who live in it. Aesthetically minimalist, her works deploy repetition and a large range of reference, in order to emphasize labor and the meditative aspects of experience.

"Edge Habitat Materials" brings together all the artwork created by Mirra between 1995 and 2009, accompanied by disparate texts. For example, in an essay on walking as a minimal aesthetic practice, Bradin Cormack situates Mirra's walks – which she then indexed in overlapping exhibitions – within the context of literary engagements with walking. Together, the art and critical engagements offer a testament to a richly varied creative practice, one that continues to shift and surprise today.