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Jessica Zeglin, Cycle Saints Installation

Midtown Greenway

Cycle Saints Installation

As you bicycle on a trail or an empty road on a beautiful summer morning or a challenging winter afternoon, do you ever think about why cycling appeals to you? Why do you forgo your car and get out on those two wheels? Are you ever envious of the dashboard saints and roadside shrines that offer good luck charms and places to reflect for drivers? Then visit the Cycle Saints shrine to reflect on what cycling means to you.

This exhibit adapts the car-based dashboard saint and roadside shrine for bicyclists. For this evening only, the Greenway will host a trail-side shrine to imaginary animal saints that embody different aspects of cycling. Cycling connects to many characteristics of our lives, from endurance to relaxation, dexterity to exploration. The shrine will display icons of animal “saints” that illustrate these traits, such as an otter representing playfulness and a salmon representing endurance. This fun installation adopts car-based ideas for cyclists and creates a space for Northern Spark attendees and cyclists to reflect on the more ineffable qualities of bicycling as a practice.

The shrine will be created by Jessica Zeglin, an artist whose paintings focus on animals, plants, and the natural world; our human interactions with nature; and our conceptions of nature, personhood, beauty, and value. Her recent work explores the theme of animals as saints, calling into question the line between our perceptions of high and low value creatures. She lives and works in Minneapolis, where she leads a triple life of public health research, visual art, and music making (as one-half of the band and arts collaborative the ghost test). See her work at www.theghosttest.org.