Ian
Solomon
Ian John Solomon is an interdisciplinary artist-journalist & organizer from Detroit, Michigan. Deeply motivated by environment, Ian’s practice asserts a relationship to the natural world as a necessary vehicle to personal and communal actualization, utilizing space and place as foundation for urgent community conversations spanning the spiritual to the political. As the founder of ‘Amplify Outside’, a Detroit based outdoor organization, and the Host of PBS- Great Lakes Now segment “Ian Outside” his visual art practice extends from a social practice of connecting Black Midwesterners to natural spaces.
Ian has exhibited and won awards across the Midwest, including being a 2025 BMI Summer Institute Fellow at University of Illinois Chicago, 2024 Playground Detroit Fellow and 2024 Cranbrook Art Museum Purchase Award Nominee. In 2024 Ian received two Emmy nominations, an Emmy Award and a First Place award in Environmental Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. Ian received his MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2024.
Sessions with Ian
Power of Nature
4:20PM-5PM
Nature shapes us, grounds us, and sparks the stories we carry. For Detroit-based artist-journalist and organizer Ian Solomon, the outdoors is more than a backdrop, it’s a driving force in his art, community work, and vision for belonging. In this closing keynote, Ian sits down with Dan Wanschura, host of Interlochen Public Radio’s Points North podcast, for a conversation about how nature inspires creativity, fuels resilience, and connects us to each other. They’ll explore the intersections of art, access, and the transformative power of being outside.
Campfire
Sponsor