At University of Texas at Austins Mebane Gallery, a group show organized by Kyriakos Kyriakou and Sofia Krimizi compiles drawings which meditate on the micro-urban archipelago, a condition which makes up much of the American hinterland, curators said. The exhibition, Micropolitan American, opened today, January 9.The project builds upon years of research and teaching by Kyriakou and Krimizi, both Greek architects. Kyriakou teaches at UT Austin, and Krimizi at Londons Architectural Association. Micropolitan Americas conceptual point of departure is a famous 1976 cartoon by Saul Steinberg. The drawing, View of the World from 9th Avenue, which featured on the cover of The New Yorker, showed what middle America looks like from the lush, perhaps distorted view of Manhattan and its people.In Steinbergs drawing, vast terrain is compressed: Beyond the Hudson River, everywhere between Chicago, the U.S.-Mexico border, and Los Angeles is shown as one homogenous landmass. This was meant as a commentary on the elitist gaze and sheer apathy many New Yorkers seemingly have in what happens in the so-called fly over states.(Saul Steinberg/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)At Mebane Gallery, with Micropolitan America, Kyriakou and Krimizi were interested in flipping this paradigm on its head. Micropolitan America offers an alternative construction of this perspective, shifting the lens away from the vast, formless megalopolis, and positioning it on the archipelago of micro-urban clusters rendered invisible in the hyper-context of the urbanized American countryside, curators said. Turning our gaze on the miniature cities of the American hinterland, the curators continued, we see the social, political, economic and environmental fissures produced by the deployment of planetary networks of capitalist urbanization.Toward that end, Kyriakou and Krimizi collected student drawings in line with this mission by Zeke Jones, Lexi Blanton, and others, as well as works by UT Austin grads including AN contributor Davis Richardson.Projection Drawing by Zeke Jones and Lexi Benton (Courtesy UT Austin)Students from Texas Tech University and University of Houston also contributed drawings. These works reflect on the current reality in the hinterland and project, distort, or accelerate it into absurd yet familiar fantasies found within abstract futures, the curatorial statement adds.To make their drawings, students set off on many road trips; they were encouraged to document their journeys, and the fears, paranoia, and paradoxes they encountered, but also the things which gave them hope; not unlike what Bob Venturi and Denise Scott Brown did a few decades back in Vegas.An opening talk for Micropolitan Americawill take place on January 17, and the show will stay open through February 14.