Curtis Miller
a fence is a fence but the clouds move freely
16mm and 4K video
8 minutes 12 seconds
2023
a fence is a fence but the clouds move freely is a brief essay on the origin of four small towns in rural Kansas and Oklahoma, told through each town’s respective water tower. Tall tales, public memorials, and roadside signage present in a region shadowed with settler-colonialism, identity fictions, and the threat of severe weather.
Curtis Miller is an artist and educator working across film, video, photography, and publication. His work often takes the American Midwest as both site and subject. His films have screened internationally at the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Antimatter, Chicago International Film Festival, DMZ Documentary Festival, EXiS, IDFA, Mimesis Documentary Festival, and Visions du Réel, as well as the Hyde Park Arts Center, Indiana University Cinema, and the Renaissance Society, among others. Other venues for performance, printed matter, and installations include the Chicago Artist Book Fair, MdW Art Fair, College Arts Association, Gallery 400, Tiger Strikes Asteroid and various artist-run projects and spaces throughout the Midwest. He has taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the City Colleges of Chicago, and most recently as lecturer for the Department of Art, Theory, and Practice at Northwestern University. In 2025, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film." For more information and work, please visit curtis-miller.com.
This work is shared by Roman Susan as a part of Evergreen at 4750 N Sheridan Road, Chicago IL.