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.

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.

Lifetime Guarantee (artist collaborative Jenny Hillenbrand and Kristen Tordella-Williams) invites you to the thirteenth 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.

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.

This performance continues the tradition of bringing the iron community together over a warm fire with a breakfast fundraiser to share support and a future of accessibility, cultural representation, and belonging in our community.

Rise and resist with breakfast bots for a suggested donation that will help fund the Iron Futures Scholarship.

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.

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.

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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?

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 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.

Since its first launch in 2011, the Sloss Alumni Trebuchet has catapulted flaming fireballs for every NCCCIAP. We are excited to continue this shared tradition of engineering, art, and performance with the cast iron community in 2025.