Ioway agriculture
Land knowledge, seasonal systems, foodways and technologies that predate the state of Iowa itself.
01
Ruth—
I brought you an early version of this idea years ago.
It had a lot of ideas. What it did not yet have was a strong enough business structure behind them.
I kept thinking about it. The missing piece was not another commission, another exhibit or another one-year residency.
The missing piece was a role.
02
The premise
NOT ART ADDED TO
LIVING HISTORY FARMS.
An artist working from inside it.
Living History Farms already makes history physical. A visitor can walk into another time, handle a tool, hear an interpreter, watch a skill practiced, smell a fire, feel the distance between a task and its result.
Art can add another interpretive language—one capable of showing change across centuries, making invisible relationships visible, and connecting historical knowledge to the life a visitor is living now.
03
Why this belongs here
Three hundred years are not one story.
They are overlapping stories of land, knowledge, migration, technology, labor, community, adaptation, consequence and possibility.
Settlement & subsistence
New tools, new land-use patterns, difficult labor and the transformation of prairie into farms.
Town & exchange
Agriculture connected to trades, commerce, communication and a growing rural economy.
Horse-powered change
Mechanization accelerates what one farm family can accomplish—and changes the rhythms of work.
A living continuum
Science, data, machinery, stewardship and questions about what agriculture becomes next.
Any work engaging Ioway history would be developed with LHF historians and, where appropriate, Ioway voices—never through invented symbolism or borrowed sacred imagery.
04
A new institutional capability
ARTIST AMBASSADOR
& DIRECTOR OF VISUAL STORYTELLING
A permanent senior creative role working across art, interpretation, education, visitor experience and institutional storytelling.
Create
Original permanent and temporary artworks rooted in LHF history, collections, people and place.
Interpret
Work with historians, curators and interpreters to translate research into visual experiences.
Teach
Build art into field trips, classroom resources, workshops and independent discovery.
Engage
Create participatory works that let visitors contribute meaning without reducing the result to a craft project.
Connect
Bring senior visual thinking to exhibits, development, major initiatives and the evolution of LHF's public expression.
05
Example 01 / Permanent installation
THE FURROW
REMEMBERS
A single physical line carries three centuries of agricultural change.
From a distance, the work reads as one continuous furrow moving through space. Up close, its material changes: earth-toned mineral aggregate gives way to wood, hand-worked iron, machine steel, glass and finally a nearly weightless etched surface carrying contemporary field data.
The line never breaks. The means of working the land change dramatically, but each era remains physically present inside the whole.
Educational layerWhat changed? What endured? What did each innovation make possible—and what new questions did it create?
CONCEPT ART 01The Furrow RemembersRecommended render: 1:1 or 4:5
06
Example 02 / Interactive interpretive artwork
ONE ACRE /
300 YEARS
The same piece of Iowa ground—seen again and again as human decisions change it.
A precisely scaled square installation is built from transparent and translucent layers. Each layer reveals a different reading of one acre: native plant systems, cultivation patterns, property boundaries, drainage, crop rotation, mechanization, soil data and contemporary precision agriculture.
Visitors physically align and separate the layers. History is no longer a sequence of dates. It becomes cause, effect and accumulated decision-making.
Educational layerStudents can compare evidence, identify change over time and use the work as a starting point for standards-based inquiry.
CONCEPT ART 02One Acre / 300 YearsRecommended render: square
07
Example 03 / Collection-inspired mixed media
WHAT THE
SOIL KEPT
History as accumulation rather than a timeline.
A long, museum-quality cross-section appears to have been lifted from the ground. Within translucent strata are cast impressions and carefully selected non-collection materials: seed forms, worn wood grain, forged textures, fragments of handwritten records, machine geometry, root systems and traces of weather.
Nothing is presented as a literal archaeological layer. Instead, the work asks how agriculture leaves evidence—on land, objects, families and memory.
Educational layerCollections objects can become research starting points while the original artifacts remain protected and interpreted with curatorial control.
CONCEPT ART 03What the Soil KeptRecommended render: 16:9
08
The important distinction
THESE WORKS ARE EXAMPLES.
THEY ARE NOT THE PROPOSAL.
The proposal is the creative capacity to keep discovering the right work from inside Living History Farms.
A commissioned artist receives a brief and leaves. An embedded artist develops relationships—with collections, interpreters, educators, farmers, students, donors and visitors. Over time, those relationships produce work that could not have been invented from the outside.
09
Art as public education
ONE ARTWORK.
MANY WAYS IN.
notices a material change and asks why.
uses the work to compare primary evidence and change over time.
recognizes something from a grandparent's farm and begins telling a story.
sees a tangible outcome of supporting education and interpretation.
connects a historical agricultural decision to a question still being debated today.
The art does not compete with interpretation.
It creates another reason to engage with it.
10
A broader creative resource
THE WORK WOULD NOT HAVE TO STOP AT THE FRAME.
My professional life has also been spent in brand strategy, creative direction, design, illustration and visual systems.
That is not the reason for this proposal—but it makes the role more useful.
Working collaboratively with LHF's existing teams, the same visual thinking could strengthen exhibit communication, educational materials, donor storytelling, major initiatives, environmental graphics and—where useful—the evolution of the Living History Farms brand.
Not a takeover of marketing.
A senior creative resource that can connect the pieces.
11
Built as a real business proposition
PERMANENT BY DESIGN.
DISCIPLINED BY GOALS.
This should not be a one-year experiment disguised as a job. It should be a permanent role with a thoughtful launch, measurable institutional value and a funding structure appropriate to a nonprofit museum.
A senior full-time position with normal organizational accountability and annual objectives.
Salary supports the role. Significant fabrication, installation and outside services are planned and funded as projects.
Education initiatives, participatory works, signature installations and public programs can be packaged for grants, gifts and corporate underwriting.
Year 1 establishes the practice. Year 2 expands integration. Year 3 institutionalizes what proves most valuable. The position itself does not expire.
12
How it could begin
ESTABLISH → EXPAND → INSTITUTIONALIZE
Establish
Deep research, relationships, first signature works, education pilots, visual-storytelling priorities and a fundable program framework.
Expand
More ambitious public works, deeper school integration, recurring participatory programming and stronger sponsor/donor narratives.
Institutionalize
A recognizable LHF creative practice with permanent collection growth, established educational use and long-term underwriting opportunities.
13
Why revisit this now?
LIVING HISTORY FARMS IS ALREADY ENTERING A NEW CHAPTER.
A new arrival experience. New learning spaces. New exhibit capacity. A strategic plan centered on richer visitor experiences, creativity, curiosity, empathy and stronger connections between agricultural heritage and people's lives today.
The physical museum has changed. The opportunity now is to keep expanding the ways its stories can be experienced.
This idea belongs in that conversation.
Ruth—
I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO APPROVE A PROPOSAL.
I'm asking whether this idea is now strong enough to deserve another conversation.
Twenty minutes. No formal presentation required. I would rather hear what you believe is possible, what I am missing, and whether a role like this could help Living History Farms become even more effective at doing what it already does best:
make history live.
Clint Hansen
Artist • Brand Strategist • Visual Storyteller
clint@clinthansen.com • 515-380-4737