Instagram story viewer> @1anjohn> Posts

Ian John Solomon

@1anjohn

3K

followers

2678

following

Emmy Award Winning Outdoorsman
Outside🌲 ➡️ @ian.outside @amplifyoutside

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

LEEWAY (n) /ˈlēˌwā/ “The Time, Space, or Freedom to Pursue”

The more I make and share it becomes clear my favorite way to see the work live is *with* people; The gallery is great, but home is where the heart is. For me, LEEWAYS is another avenue to connect people to place and for you, more accessible way to collect my works.

Launching with custom steel polaroids from my “Iron, Copper, Steel” (2024) installation featuring all Michigan landscapes originally shown at my solo show “CITY WILD” with @playgroundDetroit. This is a first offering of what will be intentional collections of pieces rooted in my explorations of place. Look out for more places for your wall, desk or body soon. Thank you for everything .🌱 taken in Michigan, USA by @1anjohn

32

6

4 months ago

We’re Live!!! 🎉🥳 Episode 1 of Amplify Outside podcast is out now! You’ll meet the host, Ian John Solomon (@ian.outside) and hear @cityofdetroit director of Sustainability Tepfirah Rushdan tell her story of sustainability in Detroit and why the D is the place to be for environmentalism! ✊🏾🌲 taken in Detroit, Michigan by @1anjohn

143

7

5 months ago

Image: “Mask Untitled” (2024) Self Portrait
Object: “Mask 1” (2024) Hand blown clear + mirrored glass beads, Ceramic Fragment, Dried Moss, Leather, Chicken wire

Stepping deeper into embodiment of land, camouflage and adornment; The mask seeks discretion while positioning itself as an object of desire.

Digital portrait?? it’s giving 2021 by @1anjohn

3

51

3 years ago

We are excited to announce the 2026 Applebaum Artists-in-Residence at the Garden Lab for Eco-Creative Futures!!
Supported by @applebaumgiving, this new residency program in Detroit, MI, supports artists working at the intersection of art, ecology, and community - offering artists the opportunity to use the Garden Lab as a site for research, experimentation, and public engagement.

Our inaugural residents are:
Brittanie Bondie @brittaniebondie
Leslie Rogers @buttflincher
Ian Solomon @1anjohn

You can read more about the artists in our link in bio 🔗

We look forward to sharing more from these artists in the months to come as they begin to activate our garden space this summer! taken in Herman Kiefer Hospital by @1anjohn

3

23

3 months ago

Spring recap (2/?) Find myself yelling to the mountains in the morning. Such a grounding, regenerative time in Creston, BC at @empireofdirtresidency. Two weeks of reaffirming my favorite part of making is the new people & places it brings me to. Immensely grateful for the time spent with these folks @fadwa_bouziane @iamnataliewood @gadepabouleje Marnie & Jim. It’s so special to find immediate synergy with strangers, spending time excavating Blackness and land and all the places that leads to. Thinking differently about ecology & visual media thanks to Esery, reaffirmed my pull to blue thanks to Natalie, imagining the possibilities of community thanks to Marnie, critiquing the institution thanks to Fadwa, and contemplating burning it all down thanks to a trip to a fresh wildfire burn thanks to Jim. Endless thanks to the Yaqan Nuki people for sharing space, time & culture with us— I’m still hearing the sounds of the Pow Wow. All I can say is thank you, thank you! taken in Creston, British Columbia by @1anjohn

122

11

3 months ago

Late Spring recap (1/?). So so grateful for my time as a resident at @pghglasscenter by way of @crafting_the_future! Not enough words for how much was learned and shared so graciously. Big thanks to @dot_mark the magician for being such a crucial studio mate & teacher— you’re a genius. (peep our altar cup collab pic #5 🤝🏾). Amazing watching @ayaokidoki & @glasshishido do what they do best! Got a chance to check out @ajamux incredible show at the amazing @silvereyecenter. So so much love for Pittsburgh, its landscape & its art spaces/ people! ❤️ #RustBelt4Ever taken in Pittsburgh Glass Center by @1anjohn

352

39

3 months ago

Incredibly excited to be selected as a 2026/27 resident with @modernancientbrown! Feels like the perfect time as I’ve been toying with some new mediums and forms in the background, making sense of shapes and stories coming into a greater clarity. The past few years have seen me bouncing around the country in pursuit of craft, very happy to have this opportunity at home to continue honing. Huge congrats to my fellow cohort— honored to share space and expand along side everyone 💫 taken in Detroit, Michigan by @1anjohn

3

37

3 months ago

“ Cowrie, 35.98438° N, 78.07888° W (Bass Plantation)” 20”x30”.

Last week to see the work up for Radial Survey with @silvereyecenter ! taken in Nash County by @1anjohn

123

6

8 months ago

Join us today, Jan 20 for a virtual conversation with all six artists of Radial Survey Vol.4. As we look forward to this thoughtful exchange, let’s learn more about each artist!

Ian John Solomon (@1anjohn) is a Detroit-based interdisciplinary artist-journalist whose lens-based practice explores self, ancestry, community, land, and ecology. Ian writes:

“Through the body, land, and spirit, we can travel time, interrogate complex histories, and imagine future realities. It’s in recognition of a severance within that Holy Trinity that my work functions as a balm and request to reckon with the Black American relationship between the three.

Weaving narratives personal to political, I utilize lens -based mediums, craft, performance in the natural world to explore identity, ancestral memory, ritual, and environmental injustice. Through this interdisciplinary exploration, the body, land, and spirit alchemize in search of reconciliation with the past, present, and future of Black place in nature.”

📅 Virtual program on Tuesday, Jan 20, 6pm
🔵 Free and open to all
🔗 Register via the link in our bio

Radial Survey Vol.4 is supported by a grant from @leonianfoundation

Image 1: Ian John Solomon, Camp Van Dyke, 2024
Image 2: Ian John Solomon artist portrait. Image credit: @jayefrances_imagery taken in Silver Eye Center for Photography by @1anjohn

169

1

8 months ago

Places I Can Be (2025)

Steel, instant film by @1anjohn

3

0

9 months ago

“Brother’s Keeper, Waves on Swim” (2025)

Had the pleasure of getting back into the portrait studio for @wethepeople_actionfund @gingerroot313 “Man, Speak Up” campaign. Around the same time @liveannlove was kind enough to tap me for a presentation of my visual & social practice to their class at MSU as they explored Black Masculinities. It’s not a theme I spoke directly to very often, but grateful for the way these two opportunities made me excavate the undercurrent of Black queer manhood and land in the work over the years. Loved this shot, had to collage it.

1. “Brother’s Keeper, Waves on Swim” (2025)
2. Digital portrait for @wethepeople_actionfund styled by @sydbeann @thedueydealer

3-10, various works in the vault taken in Detroit, Michigan by @1anjohn

3

29

9 months ago

“True enchantment is a kind of suspension of ‘knowing’ that takes place inside a space of deep fascination with the unfamiliar. Experiences like this can be stumbled upon or sought out, rejected or embraced, but they always—even if only for a moment—evoke a childlike wonder of boundlessness. In the summer of 2025, Detroit-based artists KESSWA and Ian Soloman came together to make an exhibition that meditates on the creative possibilities of opacity as presented by writer and poet Edouard Glissant.”

Ashley Cook interviews KESSWA and Ian Soloman about the philosophical approach to their collaborative exhibition CO-ALCHEMY

Check out the interview at https://runnerdetroit.run ~ PUBLISHED TODAY! December 15, 2025 by @1anjohn

105

4

10 months ago