Terrain Biennial: The Inuagural Biennial

Terrain Exhibitions kicked off the inaugural Terrain Biennial in 2013. The biennial featured nine public art interventions at Sabina Ott’s and neighboring homes on the 700 block of Highland Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois. 

Lawn signs by Chicago artist Alberto Aguilar titled “Un Summary End.” Vinyl punctuation marks adorn white plastic yard signs in repeating symmetrical patterns that lead the eye in and out of the frame of the image.


Sabina Ott began Terrain Exhibitions / Biennial as a project space utilizing the front yard and porch of her house in 2011. Terrain Exhibitions continued as a project space till early 2018 exhibiting many many artists from Chicagoland and beyond. Check out the archives Terrain Exhibitions archive Tumblr and Wix sites (link in our bio). 

An Inflatable sculpture by Oak Park artists Claire Ashley snakes down the center of a rainy Highland Avenue. It is about 18 inches in diameter and maybe 30 feet in length. It is made out of an off white canvas or muslin and brightly splatter painted…

Energized by the community response to exhibitions projects at Terrain, Sabina asked her neighbors to join her in hosting artists themselves and expand the scope of Terrain beyond her front yard into other spaces, locations and geographies. 

This photograph shows a sculptural intervention by New York based artist Robert Gero. In this work Gero has seemingly deconstructed the front porch of a residential house. Angular lines of wood jut out and explode into the front yard. Painted to mat…





The inaugural Terrain Biennial opened on September 15th, 2013 with a Block Party that ran from lunchtime late into the evening. The Block Party was a place for the community on Highland Avenue and the local Chicagoland arts community to convene, share experiences and connect with each other. Claire Ashley produced an event featuring her inflatable sculptures. Ellen Butler, neighbor, exhibited her paintings and Elizabeth Rexford’s The Harmonia Quartet played on the Longfellow Elementary school steps. There were a plethora of activities and constructive projects for the whole family, such as bookbinding, fluxkit exchanges, Exquisite Corpse drawing games, and a chance for all to participate in creating a surrealist poem imagined by Stephanie Barber.





Here are a few images of our favorites from Terrain Biennial 2013:

  1. Alberto Aguilar “Un Summary End”

  2. Claire Ashley “StreetSigns”

  3. Roberto Gero “Expansion Trespass”

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