A lauded selection at 2024 events including the DC Environmental Film Festival, the New York African Film Festival, and SXSW EDU, director Mark Decena's Farming While Black serves as the second presentation in this year's QC Environmental Film Series hosted by River Action, its January 26 presentation at Davenport's Figge Art Museum treating patrons to what Civil Eats deemed "a unique and enthralling perspective on an often overlooked aspect of the American dream.”

A thrilling adaptation of Sophocles’ play Philoctetes by celebrated Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy serves as the first 2025 production at Iowa City's Riverside Theatre, the show's January 30 through February 9 run treating audiences to what Broad Street Review deemed "a rousing exploration of how our dark impulses threaten to shatter the soul – and how the light of compassion can temper our baser urges."

With its performers the latest guests in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist Series, the children's-book adaptation Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch enjoys a special January 30 presentation at the Rock Island Public Library's Watts-Midtown Branch, this beautiful, funny, and touching short play with puppets imagined for the stage by Axis Theatre’s artistic director Chris McGregor.

Featuring 26 beautiful paintings and drawings by a noted graduate of Stanford University and the California School of Fine Arts, the colorful exhibition Beth Van Hoesen: Prints from the Permanent Collection will be on display at the Muscatine Art Center through March 9, the collection's opening held on the top floor of the historic Musser-McColm mansion.

Boasting evocative mixed-media collages inspired by the artist’s time spent living in Mexico, the arresting exhibition Mirrors and Milagros: A Collection of Art Collage by Corinne Stanley will be on display at the Muscatine Art Center through March 9, the collection's opening held on the top floor of the historic Musser-McColm mansion.

Stunning works by an Argentine-American artist and educator revered for his advanced techniques in intaglio printmaking, as well as members of his family, will be celebrated at the University of Dubuque's Bisignano Art Gallery through February 3, with Lasansky: UD's Private Collection honoring the man who established the school of printmaking at the University of Iowa, which offered the first Master of Fine Arts program in the field in the United States.

Featuring paintings both from the museum's collection and on loan, the Figge Art Museum's Marvin Cone: Painter offers a celebration of this exceptional artist and teacher who steadfastly pursued artmaking for more than 50 years, the arresting exhibit, on display through June 8, exploring Cone's life as an Iowa artist, the stylistic shifts in his work, and new perspectives on a familiar area talent.

A lauded 2024 documentary sequel that, according to The Guardian, "will make you think twice about what you put in your supermarket basket," directors Robert Kenner's and Melissa Robledo's Food, Inc. 2 serves as the first presentation in 2025 QC Environmental Film Series hosted by River Action, its January 19 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum treating attendees to what RogerEbert.com's Glenn Kenny deemed "an engaging and watchable activist documentary that does make way for optimism."

With the in-person event held in commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Week, Augustana College graduate, former Moline teacher/coach, and Superintendent of Rock Island-Milan Public Schools Dr. Dave Markward takes part in a talk-show-style conversation about his memoir From Dubuque to Selma & Beyond: My Journey to Understand Racism in America, the January 23 Moline Public Library program finding Markward engaging with fellow Augustana grad and Moline businessman Brett Carter.

Fresh off her critically acclaimed role in Pamela Adlon's 2024 indie comedy Babes, an award-winning standup comedian, actress, television host, producer, and podcast host takes part in the latest virtual Illinois Libraries Present program hosted by the Rock Island and Silvis Public Libraries, the January 23 event Love & Laughs with Michelle Buteau finding its subject in honest, hilarious conversation with interviewer Greta Johnsen.

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