Rufus Jupiter (they/ them) is a midwestern multidisciplinary artist who burrows in liminal spaces, seeking out the omnipresent queer ecologies of their rural landscape. A 2022- 2024 Springboard For The Arts Rural Regenerator Fellow, Rufus explores intersections of community organizing, creative practice, and ecological inquiry through site- specific improvisational performance, collaborative relationships, and visual imagery. As a rural queer-trans individual, Rufus finds inspiration through both the vibrancy and struggle of their small queer community. Their roles as flower farmer (Lathyrus Flora) and community organizer deeply inform their creative practice; they see art as both a tool for and a harvest of social transformation. In 2020, Rufus Jupiter, Mandy Herrick, and AnnaJo Doerr formed WEdances Movement Collaborative, a somatics- based, site- responsive performance art trio that has produced public works such as The Parking Lot Project, siteSee, Here/Now/Feel, (m)omentum: wrapping the gutscape, Controlled Flow, bodies of water, and Backspace. As a co- creator of social spaces and leader of community initiatives, Rufus is a current co- developer of the Vernon County Queer Histories Project and member of a planning team for a future public- access artspace in Viroqua, WI. Rufus holds a BFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University.