OUR 2024 ARTIST RESIDENTS

Adrienne is a multi-disciplinary artist who believes that her art finds value in the communities that it represents. Her art is informed by the people it inspires and impacts. She believes that community raised her; her art is the direct product of that experience.

www.theflutepursuit.com

I am an interdisciplinary storyteller, teaching artist, curator, and activist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mediums I most commonly work with include dance, poetry, music, collage, and puppetry. A native of Osaka, Japan, I tell stories that reflect the narrative of immigrant women of color that are often underrepresented.

IG - @akikoostlund1

Ali Yager is a Visual Artist working in Installation, sculpture, drawing and painting. She lives in Monticello, Mn where she is an active member in the community arts organization, MontiArts. She is also an Adjunct Professor at St. Cloud State University and St. Cloud Technical and Community College.

www.aliyagerart.com

Amanda (she/her) and Elena (she/her) began collaborating in 2021. They are dedicated to sharing their passion for movement through dynamic contemporary dance performances. Amanda and Elena draw inspiration from nature, paintings, literature, and music.

elenahollenhorst.com

Amanda is a visual artist living and working in Stillwater, Minnesota. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Minnesota, California, Georgia, Washington and Wisconsin. Having lived, worked and visited many cities and states, a sense of place has become an endless source of inspiration for Amanda.

amandahanlon.com

Anaïs Deal-Márquez is a Mexican writer based out of Minneapolis. Her writing has been published in POETRY, The BreakBeat Poets Volume 4: LatiNEXT, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Yellow Medicine Review, The Acentos Review, Pleiades, and Huizache. She writes about migration, home, and healing.

IG - @anais_delmar

Banna Desta is an Eritrean and Ethiopian-American playwright and screenwriter who crafts stories about and for the African diaspora. She was awarded the John Golden Prize for excellence in playwriting at NYU, where received her MFA in Dramatic Writing where she currently teaches undergraduate students.

bannadesta.com

Beatrice Ogeh is an emerging fiction writer whose work explores subjects such as race, depression, and alienation while threading the needle between humor and darkness. Her work has appeared in Runestone Literary Journal and Flash Fiction Magazine. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she is hard at work (occasionally) on her first novel.

IG - @whacktheweirdo

Drew Woodson is a Western Shoshone playwright based in New York City. He has had his work read in multiple theaters across New York, including Rattlestick Theater where he was asked to open the first annual Northeastern Native Arts Festival with his play “Your Friend, Jay Silverheels.”

IG - @woodsondrew

Emmett Ramstad’s art practice explores body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space through sculpture, installation, performance, and social engagement. Recent achievements include a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, a Creative Support for Individuals Grant for an exhibition with artist families, and three solo exhibitions featuring paper toweling and tissue boxes.

www.emmettramstad.com

Franky D. Gonzalez is a Latino playwright based in Dallas. He has attained various distinctions, awards, titles, and fellowships for writing in TV, Film, and Theatre. Most recently his theatrical work has appeared with Sol Project, UC Santa Barbara, Urbanite Theatre, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, and Vision Latino Theatre Company.

Instagram: @phattheddproductions

Gina Femia is an award-winning playwright, performer and teacher whose work has been produced/developed all over the country. As a teacher, Gina has worked with Playwrights Center, Primary Stages ESPA, among others.

www.femiagina.com

jess pretty is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and the current artistic director of AUNTS; a punk/DIY performance series that hosts events/festivals/shows to highlight the works of experimental dance makers.

José Felipe Ozuna was born in Guerrero, Mexico and currently lives in Minneapolis, MN. He is an Undocupoets Fellow and a 2023-24 Mentor Series Fellow. His poems are published in Poetry Online, River Mouth Review, hex, HAD, and elsewhere. You can find him at: linktr.ee/josewrites.

Julián Mesri is a New York-based Argentinean-American playwright and composer who makes multilingual plays and musicals. Recent work includes Comedy of Errors (Public Theater), Favaloro (EST Sloan). He is a Playwrights Center Core Writer at the Playwrights Center and has been a member of the Public Theater Emerging Writer’s Group, a DGF Fellow, an Emerging Artist at NYTW. MFA Columbia.

www.julianmesri.com

Lacey Squier is an Ely, Minnesota based writer, podcast host, and Ely Folk School cooking instructor who works in economic and community development.

IG - @lacely

Lane Michael Stanley is a transgender writer and filmmaker. Their plays have been developed and produced by 19 theaters in 8 states including the Barter Theater, Kitchen Dog Theater, and Island City Stage. Their award-winning short and feature films have played festivals including Austin and Outfest. www.lanemichaelstanley.com.

www.lanemichaelstanley.com

Violinist, Laura Harada, enjoys a diverse musical life spanning Western classical to Eastern microtonal music, Brazilian forro and choro, Argentine tango, free jazz and creative music of many kinds. A member of National Arab Orchestra in Detroit, she performs in Minnesota with Arabic ensemble Amwaaj, Samba Meu, and Aby Wolf’s Champagne Confetti.

Lisa Channer is an actor, director, filmmaker and producer based in Minneapolis. She is co-artistic director Theatre Novi Most/Novi Most Films, and current head of the BA Performance Program at the University of Minnesota Theatre Arts & Dance.

lisachanner.com

Lynda Grafito is a Colombian visual artist based in Minnesota. She has collaborated on different projects such as two graphic novels in Colombia and has been part of several group exhibitions and creation of murals around the twin cities. Lynda currently works as a digital illustrator, printmaker, muralist and teaching artist.

IG - @lyndagrafito

Matthew "M" Baxley is an artist and entrepreneur who owns Bear Witness Media, a video and audio production company that bears witness to our most meaningful human experiences. M is invested in the power of story and the way that stories shape how we know each other, our places, and our selves.

IG - @bear_witness_media

Matthew Amundsen is a writer, musician, and visual artist living in the Twin Cities. He has published short stories since 1990 in national and international outlets, and his music has been critically acclaimed in such publications as The Wire.

IG - @rrowr

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş is Turkish-American poet, choreographer, and filmmaker. She has served as resident artist at Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Stapleton School for the Performing Arts, and The Center at Eagle Hill, and has been commissioned for World Stage Design, 92NY’s Future Dance Festival, and FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival.

www.poeticabythebay.com

Megan Tabaque is Filipina-Canadian theater artist. Her work has been developed and produced by institutions across the US. She is a Michener Fellow, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, and was the 2021-2023 Emory Fellow of Playwriting. She works in LA as a Visiting Professor of Playwriting at UC Riverside.

megantabaque.com

Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, arts educator, and literary critic. In addition to his own writing projects, he teaches creative writing through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, at the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, and in Augsburg University's low-residency MFA program.

Flutist, Paula Gudmundson was born in San Jose, Costa Rica. At this point in my life I have spent more time outside of my tiny homeland and Minnesota has a provided a wonderful home for the past 18 years. I have had the opportunity to explore the flexibility and versatility of the flute in a variety of concert settings including performing with a rock band, Ovrfrwd and Seven Suns Ensemble with Sitar and Tabla.

www.paulagudmundson.com

Randy Reyes is an award-winning theater artist who has worked as a professional actor, director, playwright, and theater educator. He’s an Assistant Professor at Macalester College. He trained at the University of Utah, where he received the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award, and The Juilliard School.

Sid Gopinath is a Brooklyn-based artist. He produces music for indie artists, including Mayyadda, brunson, and Josephine. As a songwriter, he performs in bluesoul and has worked with Young the Giant’s Sameer Gadhia for his project Cedar Lake. Outside of music, he has written TV for Amazon, FX, and others.

IG - @sid.gopinath

Sequoia Hauck (they/them) is a two-spirit, queer, trans non-binary, Anishinaabe and Hupa filmmaker and interdisciplinary performance artist and director who creates work that finds ways to indigenize the process of art-making.

Instagram: @sequoiahauck

Simran Kaur is a Sikh-American practitioner of Kathak, a South Asian classical dance tradition. Having acquired her early training in Western Canada, she participated and medaled in several classical dance competitions. Simran has performed in Canada, the United States, and India.

Taiyon J Coleman is a 2017 recipient of a McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship in Creative Prose. She is a teacher and a writer that lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her family. Her collection of critical essays, Traveling without Moving, is forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press on June 4, 2024.