Clare Kinkaid

“When I got here from Philadelphia, one of the first things I did was reach out to Public Access TV,” remembers Clare Kinkaid, an experimental filmmaker who moved to Cedar Rapids two years ago. The response wasn’t ideal; PATV had closed. However, they’d given all their equipment to an independent arts organization called PS1.

It didn’t take long for Kinkaid to drive down to PS1 to see what they had. “Right away, I proposed a club—and immediately, they said yes,” she says of her first meeting with PS1 staff.

“I was really afraid there wouldn’t be any kind of art community here,” Kincaid admitted—she’s mainly lived in cities. Connecting with PS1 dispelled those concerns. The first IC Video Zine screening filled PS1 Close House’s Main Hall. The burgeoning community of video makers–self-dubbed “freaks and squares”—is now in its third season, and Kinkaid is sure it’s only going to grow.

What PS1 offers is, in her mind, vital: “The public sphere is so commercialized that there aren’t many spaces for people to meet where there’s not any kind of money involved. But when you look at the history of our country, those spaces are really important to new ideas.”