#projects/2025/heller-center #projects/moc

Heller Center Pieces and Artist Statement

Heller Center Opening Night.jpg

The Heller Center Arts Exchange was a project through UCCS in which four students and I put together a gallery of our work around a theme. The theme was "Spreading the Word(s): The Poetry of Activism."

About the Artist

Nico Wilkinson (they/he) is a poet, organizer, and artist based out of Colorado Springs, CO. They are the organizer of keep colorado springs queer, an award-winning open mic founded in 2016. In January 2017 they released “Inauguration,” a collaborative book with Idris Goodwin which celebrated resilience in the midst of the hostile political climate. They are the 2017 champion of Capturing Fire, the national queer poetry competition and summit. In June 2025 they released their first full-length poetry collection, The Weeds Grow Anyway, starting with a limited handbound first edition that featured a linocut-printed cover.

When they aren't creating or inspiring the joy of creation in others through their poetry, printmaking, and bookmaking workshops, they

A large focus of their work has been their queer and trans experience, particularly in the varied political climate of Colorado Springs which they have become well-acquainted with in their career as an organizer and fundraiser. It is through this year's Heller Center's Arts Exchange exhibition that they have started to reflect on their experiences as someone impacted by long Covid. Through their art, they seek to convey the loneliness of having long Covid in a Covid Careless world, as well as the injustice of Covid denial that harms disabled, immunocompromised, and otherwise at-risk people, as well as everyone who risks death and disability with each subsequent infection.

Their experience of becoming part of the growing community of those impacted by long Covid, they seek to understand accessibility

They can be found at www.nicowilkinson.com and @nicothepoet on Instagram.

The Labyrinth Beneath Your Feet Book

Nico Wilkinson
Sculptural Art Book, Digitally edited gouache and watercolor paintings

the labyrinth beneath your feet is an artist book/zine that examines the artist's experience of having Long Covid in a world of Covid denial through the lens of the Greek myth of the minotaur of Greek myth, Asterius. The next (maroon text) is from the point of view of the artist and their experience of having Long Covid. The last (black text) is a poem about long Covid. The three texts intertwine across the work, conversing with each other across time, mythology, and reality to lament a common loneliness in being left behind by a world that refuses to accommodate you, and may even find your presence uncomfortable, while also celebrating the unexpected communities that can arise among the ostracized. The work also urges the viewer to consider the inevitability of disability when navigating through community, an inevitability that is only more certain with the unmitigated spread of Covid in 2025.

The book is also available as a zine and the text within is also available via a screen reader-compatible, higher contrast webpage that can be accessed here: The Labyrinth Beneath Your Feet Alt Text

You can also pick up a copy of the smaller 8-page zine called "It's Not Too Late" which provides tangible advice and information regarding the ongoing Covid pandemic and how you can help keep your communities safe.

Grow a Better World

Nico Wilkinson
Vending machine, glass, lights, faux foliage, paper mache, seeds

"Grow a Better World" is a repurposed vending machine that dispenses small seed shakers full of Colorado drought tolerant wildflower seeds. Inspired by an ongoing discussion with city Code Enforcement regarding its categorization of "weeds" versus "non-weeds," the piece is a whimsical ode to the biodiversity of Colorado. "Grow a Better World" is meant to encourage us to consider our relationship with nature and to, in turn, work in tandem with the natural world's inherent inclination toward diversity. Please feel free to grab your own seed shaker to use in your garden or to dispense in any patch of land that's looking a bit too homogenous. You can ask the gallery attendant for a quarter.

For ideas on how to upcycle your pod once you've sprinkled your seeds, go here.

I Have Taught Myself to Dance Alone

Nico Wilkinson
Multimedia sculpture, over 40,000 mirror tiles

In conversation with "the labyrinth beneath your feet," this piece is an homage to and a mourning of the community spaces, queer bars, clubs, and open mics, that were once a second home to the artist, but are now inaccessible due to widespread Covid denial. Using the symbol of the minotaur, a creature removed from public life due to circumstances beyond its control, the artist hopes to convey the loneliness that comes from living in a world that moves on from a pandemic, despite the ongoing threat posed by the virus to everyone, but especially those with long Covid as well as otherwise disabled and immunocompromised people. The words "WHAT IS AROUND YOU IS WHAT IS INSIDE YOU IS..." are projected from the bottom of the piece, a reminder of our interdependence on our environments and each other. The artist seeks to make the viewer aware of what countless people who have been negatively impacted by Covid know - without mitigation, spaces of joy and community can become spaces of danger, putting community members at risk of the life-altering and life-ending consequences of the ongoing pandemic.

The title of the piece is inspired by a lyric from the song "Minotaur Forgiving Knossos" by Moonface, in which the minotaur tries to forgive the city that ignores his existence.

Betrayal Seldom Comes From Your Enemies

Nico Wilkinson
12"x12"x4"
Multimedia sculpture, lights, mirrors

Another piece in the minotaur, Asterius, sitting in a hallway of open mouths, tangled in red yarn that was gifted to Theseus by Asterius' sister, Ariadne, so that Theseus might find and kill Asterius without getting lost in the labyrinth himself, is a commentary on how those who love us most can cause us the most harm in a Pandemic world.