Artist Talks @ Bunnell

How are international artists-in-residence managing pandemic, distance and dialogue? Fiber artists Berith Stennab (Skövde, Sweden) and Mandy Bernard (Homer, Alaska) discuss their intercontinental collaboration of shared communication and textiles. Stennab and Bernard are participants in a residency exchange between Bunnell Street Arts Center and Skövde Museum sponsored by the Alaska Community Foun...

Sara Tabbert – Signs of Life "Certainly I am but one of many artists whose lives were completely rearranged by the ongoing pandemic. Of all the things that were supposed to happen in the last 12 months, this exhibit at Bunnell is the only event on my calendar that wasn’t postponed or canceled. This collection of recent work reflects my continued interest in the less celebrated landscapes of Alaska...

Nina Elder, February 2021 artist in residence at Bunnell Street Arts Center, discusses her fascination with fraying materials, lines, tension, release and mending with artist Billy Joe Miller. Both will share images and discuss their work. Elder has been collecting and drawing frayed rope in Homer. Elder and Miller have made work out of ropes together in Gustavus, Alaska. Miller has made art out o...

Artist Holly Mititquq Nordlum speaks about cultural resistance and revitalization through her present projects including public art, acknowledgment through art, film and traditional tattoos. more.  

With NPN’s support, Nina is developing It Will Not Be The Same, But It Might Be Beautiful. This multimedia project poetically explores how humans are implicated in the Anthropocene and are also tasked with moving towards a more holistic future. Through video installation and large-scale drawing, this investigation of change focuses on objects that have been exhausted by use and transformed by time...

This conversation features owner/curator Simonetta Mignano of Bivy , Anchorage artspace and bookstore as she speaks with Hollis Mickey, Susan Share and Ben Huff about their art and the mission of this bookstore and home of The School of Nonfunctional Studies . more.

During this residency David developed a mixed media show that further develops Dusty Funk and the lexicon of Afrofuturism. David says, "I maintain an active scholarly engagement. Dusty Funk is a series of mixed media Art Experiences that include 3 phases. Dusty Funk Psychedelic Afro Future Space Opera an evolving set of dynamic illustrations. Dusty Funk and the Wooly Whayl a tragic and surreal com...

How do artists and writers share truthful stories about fictions staged in Alaska? American physician and explorer, Frederick Cook claimed to have discovered the North Pole in 1908. But who was “discovered" and what was suppressed in this story?   What are doctrines of discovery and what role do Alaska artists and writers and arts organizations today play in resisting colonialism through the works...

Reimagining the Arctic and Alternative histories of Alaska. Nathan Shafer discusses Dirigibles of Denali, an augmented reality app/interactive print project that reimagines three domed cities that were planned, but never built in Alaska: Seward’s Success, Denali City and Arctic Town. more.

What does it mean to create new music with respect for Indigenous cultures, stories and experiences? Found Sound Nation's Christopher Marianetti and Joe Bergen discuss their new project, Beringia, with Wild Shore New Music's Katie Cox and Angie Tanning. more.

Emily Johnson, Yup''ik multi-disciplinary artist raised in Soldotna, now based in NYC, connects with her Alaska audience about her current multidisciplinary project, Being Future Being, and how it has shaped her work in systemic change, Creating New Futures land acknowledgment and social architecture. Link to video: https://youtu.be/_QLs1fGKF4o more.

Christian Freet and Myesha Callahan Freet are conceptual artists and  collaborators focused on self, personal and social contexts, and questions surrounding the nature of reality in photography, literature,  video, sculpture, and light. They live in Chugiak. more.  

Tlingit and Athabascan artist Rico Lanáat’ Worl designed a new postage stamp to be released in 2021 for the United States Postal Service, inspired by a traditional Indigenous tale. more.

Anchorage artist Sheila Wyne explores “Three Seasons,” an ongoing series that explores art, alchemy and anthropecene. more.    

How can we create stories from the most authentic representation?  What does it mean to reimage modern storytelling with Indigenous authority, Elder and youth contributions, and our own cultural competencies? Singing for Strength: How Indigenous language, stories and songs enrich identity and community this week on Inspiration and Adaptation with David Engles, songmaker and language leader of Lowe...

How can we create stories from the most authentic representation?  What does it mean to reimage modern storytelling with Indigenous authority, Elder and youth contributions, and our own cultural competencies? Shared Universe is a group of Alaskan artists, writers and knowledge-bearers who seek feedback from readers about their efforts to create, promote and distribute exciting comic book stories/n...

David Brame describes himself as proudly Blackity Black, an afrofuturist and scholar. His most recent scholarly creative accomplishments for 2019 and 2020 include Sanford Biggers: CODESWITCH in collaboration with Professor John Jennings, The Bronx Museum and produced by Yale University Press. His scholarly work for young black youth, The Struggle, was produced by Minnesota Press. His forthcoming g...

Karen Stomberg: "I am very conscious of the preciousness of our world and the efforts made by science to protect, preserve and document each piece of it. So, though this work began with drawing the beauty of iconic wildflowers, it deepened as I considered their twin qualities of fragility and resilience."   Elissa Pettibone: "For this exhibition, I have developed a series of colors derived from Al...

Christine Byl is the author of Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods, a book about trail crews, tools, wildness, gender, and labor. Sara Tabbert is a printmaker and mixed media artist from Fairbanks, Alaska. more.

How is Sweden adapting and interpreting the pandemic in artistic practice? Swedish curators Tomas Gustafsson and Mette Muhli and artist Berith Stennabb share their activities.  In the summer of 2019, Gustafsson and Muhli visited Bunnell Street Arts Center to promote a residency for an Alaska artist at Skövde Kulturhus Kostmuseet in Sweden. more.

Lily Hope was born and raised in Juneau, Alaska to full-time artists. She is Tlingit Indian, of the Raven moiety. Following her matrilineal line, she’s of her grandmother’s clan, the T’akdeintaan, originating from the Snail House in Hoonah, Alaska. She lives in Juneau, Alaska, with her husband, author Ishmael Hope, and five children. more.

Talking with the artists from our October exhibit- Fragile Domestic. We are driven by questions around the fragility of materials and time-based craft, the fragility of unsustainable perfection, the fragility of memory, history and utility. The resulting instinct sloughs all this to reveal a harder, less breakable core. This, we nurture and feed. more.

With support from the Alaska Community Foundation's Irma Scavenius Fund for International Understanding, we look forward to bringing Nigerian muralists Yomi Awobusuyi and Kelsen Nnaji to Homer in 2021. On this podcast we'll meet these artists and their leader, Enzenwa Okora from Streetproject Foundation, in Lagos. more.

We are driven by questions around the fragility of materials and time-based craft, the fragility of unsustainable perfection, the fragility of memory, history and utility. The resulting instinct sloughs all this to reveal a harder, less breakable core. This, we nurture and feed. more.

How can we create stories from the most authentic representation? What does it mean to re-imagine modern storytelling with Indigenous authority, Elder and youth contributions, and our own cultural competencies? Shared Universe is a group of Alaskan artists, writers and knowledge-bearers who seek feedback from readers about their efforts to create, promote and distribute exciting comic book stories...