Oct 2nd 2026

Alana Ferguson: Follow the Leader

@ NEIU Fine Art Center Gallery

5500 N St. Louis Ave, Building E, Chicago, IL 60625

Opening Friday, October 2nd, from 5PM - 8PM

On view through Friday, October 23rd

The Fine Arts Center Gallery at Northeastern Illinois University presents
Follow the Leader, a solo show by Alana Ferguson.

What motivates cooperation? Is it shared beliefs? Loyalty? Goodness? Is
cooperation achieved through carrots and sticks? We define reward and
punishment as children; we absorb it in the home and in the classroom; we
enact these systems in the playground.

“Follow the Leader” can be sung, demanded, acted, thought, a trap, and a way out.

This exhibition explores symbols of reward, punishment, and power.
Equestrian monuments, carrots and sticks, national flags, and related
symbols are jumbled in mixed-media drawings and participatory kinetic
sculptures.

Artist Talk in dialogue with Nancy Lu Rosenheim: Thursday, October 15th at 12:15p.m.

Alana Ferguson is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and parent living in Chicago. She received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in
2012, an MAT from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016, and an MFA from University of Chicago in 2021. She has been an educator for
over 10 years, teaching in K-12 public schools and university classrooms.
She is an adjunct professor at the College of DuPage and a lecturer at The
School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Alongside teaching and making art,
she has coordinated artist performances in her front yard, in a project
called The Lawn.

Image: Alana Ferguson, Rules, 2025
Colored pencil, acrylic paint, marker on architectural plan

Official Website

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