How Things Work is a monthly, recurring event for entrepreneurs, professionals, city officials, and faculty and students at institutions associated with The Ion Academic Network to come together and ideate, learn from each other, and develop their network of peers in Houston’s innovation ecosystem. The Houston workforce has valuable skills and mindsets they bring to the table and all of these skills and mindsets are needed in and relevant to business and venture creation, ideation, and — quite simply, understanding how things work.

How Things Work, powered by The Ion and presented by The IAN and its partners, empowers doers of all backgrounds to accelerate innovation together.

Run of Show

• 6:00 PM – Welcome
• 6:05 PM – Panel Discussion on art as a medium for interpreting, analyzing, and communicating human experience in urban environments
• 6:55 PM – Open Networking

About The Speaker

Jake Eshelman (b. 1989, USA) is a photo-based artist and visual researcher exploring the complex relationships between people and other-than-human beings. He believes that humanity’s curious and self-imposed dissociation with the natural world provides a palpable backdrop in which we can more fully (re)consider our role in ecology. Through a documentary and intuitive practice, his recent work investigates interspecies relationships in industry, agriculture, and conservation in order to question the tenets of anthropocentrism and the implications behind the Enlightenment rationalization of “nature.”

Eshelman has exhibited work internationally, most notably at Vantaa Art Museum Artsi in Helsinki, Finland; Houston Center for Photography in Houston, TX; The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge University, UK; The Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, OH; The Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington D.C.; Hume Gallery in Chicago, IL; Des Lee Gallery in St. Louis, MO. His work is in the permanent collection of the Chicago Design Museum and has also been included in independently published photo books, collaborative artist books, and even a children’s book by Simon & Schuster encouraging aspiring creatives to pursue artistic careers. He has also been featured in numerous publications including AND2020, Trouvé Magazine, Texas Monthly, The World Sensorium / Conservancy, and Then There Was Us, among others. He also enjoys lecturing about issues he explores in his work, as well as the creative process.

Jake is currently pursuing his MA in Ecology & Spirituality from The University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. He holds a BA in Classical Literature, with a concentration in mythology, hermeneutics, and reception theory, from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, as well a minor in Studio Art and Art History. Jake is also a member of The Fairy Investigation Society. He is based in Houston, TX, working worldwide.

www.jakeeshelman.com and www.instagram.com @jake.eshelman

Parking Instructions

Visitor Parking Lot: Enter 4200 Fannin Street into your GPS for directions directly to the visitor parking lot, located in front of The Ion building.

Overflow Parking Instructions: Enter 4203 Fannin Street into your GPS for directions directly to this parking lot, located across the street from The Ion building.