top of page

Performances

TBD: Found in the Yellow Wallpaper

Marjee-Anne Levine (MassArt), 2023 Charles Hook Honoree

Conceived as an accessible learning experience, and in collaboration with participants interested in gaining exposure to the field of iron performance. Many thanks to those who volunteered!

The structure of this performance is based on an inverted form of Dashuhua, intended to simultaneously protect, conceal, and be a source of discovery. Specific words, selected from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short essay, The Yellow Wallpaper, serve as the only portal between exterior and interior: what is perceived versus what is revealed. Participants have authorship to compose in any sequence from that base text by activating selections with
molten iron. These fleeting bursts of illumination are recorded to create a new poetic work, and the forthcoming title of the piece.

Iron Salon

Aryana Norris (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), featuring members of the iron community

Come get your nails done and talk all the hot conference gossip at the Iron Salon! The Iron Salon is a celebration of queer, fem, and BIPOC artists who occupy space in a vastly industrial and grungy environment. Salons are traditionally spaces for these individuals to go and feel welcome and a part of a community that exists within the walls. Community conversations, gossip, event planning, and familiar bonds are all recognized and appreciated in the salon. Not only is this a safe space for ostracized individuals to be welcomed but a space to go and feel beautiful. Everyone deserves to feel pretty, and a fresh
set of nails can do just that.

 

Manicures only, donations go to the NCCCIAP student scholarship.

13th Harder Barter Market

Kristen Tordella-Williams (Auburn University)

Jenny Hillenbrand (Salem Art Works)

Lifetime Guarantee (artist collaborative Jenny Hillenbrand and Kristen Tordella-Williams) invites you to the tenth Harder Barter Market! Bring any handheld, trade-able item: be it a small piece of art, a tool, a raw material, a t-shirt, or service that can be performed, i.e., a
homemade breakfast or mowing the lawn. The Market will open and bartering will commence until all goods are swapped! One folk's patch is another folk's treasure.

 

Come one, come all, come barter!


THE RULES:
1. No currency
2. No re-entry
3. Entrance only to those bartering
4. IOU Services must be rendered by agreed upon date
5. Handshake seals the deal.

Prelude to Hope

Elizabeth Kronfield (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Shanti Thakur (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Leticia Bajuyo (University of Oklahoma)

Kelly Wilton (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Students from Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Oklahoma, and East Central University

​

Performance completed only by everyone. Please contribute Hope, we need you.

Hope is essential. Hope is eternal. Hope is not equal. Hope is necessary. Hope is limited. Hope burns. Hope is collective. Hope is alive. Hope is necessary. Hope needs to be cultivated. Hope is extinct. Hope is defunct. Hope is necessary. Hope is hypothetical. Hope is ethereal. Hope is truth. Hope is mythical. Hope is real. Hope is infinite. Hope is necessary. Hope is powerful. Hope is illusionary. Hope is commutative. Hope is crucial. Hope is a discipline. Hope is contagious. Hope is necessary. Help build Hope.

"Fine With This" - Benefiting the Iron Futures Scholarship Fund

Kay Dartt

Inspired in equal measure by meme culture and global calamity, "Fine With This" consists of a series of monumental, cast iron letters that spell out the title of the work. FWT is perpetually aflame, but the audience can command it to exude great bursts of fire and iteract with it as a campfire. Indeed, the work is designed to be experienced casually, promoting a conversation about armchair activism, community and the ways in which our culture can have a concrete impact on real world events. 

​

At the NCCCIAP, the interactive sculpture will focus on the communal activity of making food with a DIY breakfest bar in the morning and s'mores at night.

​

Igniting the sculpture is free

A donation towards the Iron Futures Scholarship is requested for food.

Homewrecker

Katie Hovencamp (Moravian University & Northampton Community College)

What happens when industrial and domestic processes and aesthetics combine? This performance is a chaotic experiment that will expose the awkward relationship between these two very different modalities while commenting on traditional domestic roles. This performance takes ownership of both of these aesthetics while creating a humorous relationship with food preparation and tool usage.

Midwest Pourformance + Waves of Change

Larry Hubert (Lamberton Hot Iron Days)

Clayton Hubert (Lamberton Hot Iron Days)

Mike Hubert (Lamberton Hot Iron Days)

Kenny Jensen (Lamberton Hot Iron Days)

Chris Meyer (University of South Dakota; Board of Directors, Western Cast Iron Art Alliance)

Brighton McCormick (McCormick Sculpture; Hamline University)

Cassi Rebman (Western Kentucky University)

Jordan Eaton (Nordic Iron)

Eric Stephenson (Lunarburn Studio; Carnival of Fire Iron Pour)

Kelly Ludeking (KRL Metals Art Studio; Down on the Farm Iron Pour)

This event will showcase a group of casters from the Midwest that have been casting performance iron together and inspiring each other for upwards of 20 years at regional pours. Our passion for this medium has created a visually exciting show that has evolved and grown with new crew along the way.

​

Part of A Midwest POURformance, Waves of Change will unleash a flood of iron down a “forested hillside” and across a “valley” and a “river” of magnesium and into
a backsplash causing a wave of fiery iron to wash backwards and settling into a terrible light. The source of this fiery iron comes from a trough slowly being filled over
time. Once full, there is no other place for the fire to flow but into our lives. Waves of Changespeaks to many changes happening in our world. From the flood of political changes to climate change sweeping it’s floods of fire and drowning rains across the planet. Do we stop filling our “trough” and avoid harsh, damaging changes in our world and culture?

Iron Clergy

The service will be overseen by the righteous and honorable Clergy Members:

High Priestess of the Heavy - Nicole Scannell (University of Southern Mississippi)

Archbishop Iron Sides - Luke Sides (Collin College)

Rev. Lil Bear, St. Fuertes, Keeper of the Flame - Eric Fuertes (College of DuPage)

Pastor BILF - Bill Raney (Mesalands Community College)

Reverend Caveman - Alex "Al" Johnson (Collin College)

Come! Join the procession of sinners and be forgiven for your foundry sins! The Iron Clergy is here to give absolution to all whom have committed those devilish “foundry sins” that have been preached over the years. Join with the floc of knuckle draggers and be granted
forgiveness. Writs will be cast for sacrifice, sermons will be given, atrocities will be confessed, and levity will abound.

Casting Castles

Allison Baker (Herron School of Art + Design at Indiana University)

Joe Bigley (Western North Carolina Sculpture Center)

Eric Nordgulen (Herron School of Art + Design at Indiana University)

Jason Brown (University of Tennesse Knoxville)

Samantha Pasapane (SUNY Purchase and Williams College)

Cassandra Rebman (Eastern Kentucky University)

Kevin Vanek (University of North Carolina Greensboro)

University of North Carolina Greensboro Pour'N Stars

Casting Castles is a large-scale iron pour performance that transforms the fleeting joy of childhood sandcastle building into a monumental cast iron installation. This immersive event reimagines the shoreline as a foundry floor, where molten iron flows like ocean tides, shaping an intricate network of sand molds into a sculptural landscape. Fifteen oceanic-themed molds—ranging from coral formations to seashells and aquatic creatures—are arranged to form a massive sandcastle. During the pour, channels, chutes, and aqueducts guide the molten iron in a mesmerizing sequence, illuminating the interconnected structures before solidifying into permanent relics of impermanence.

Thank you to our sponsors!

CAS_Std_black.png
DAILY GRIND 9.7x8.png
images.png
elbarrio-logo-newAsset+2_2x_edited.png
ASCAlogo_black_transparent.png

Contact

2025 National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art and Practices
  • Instagram
Sloss Furnaces
20 32nd Street N
Birmingham, AL 35222

© 2025 by NCCCIAP Steering Committee with Wix.com

bottom of page