Experience Is Expertise
by Simi Kang
Artist, poet, and scholar Simi Kang reframes the notion of expertise, examining which stories we are allowed to retain from our ancestors, what qualifies as a “valid” story, how institutions tell stories for us, and how we tell stories about and for ourselves.
When Saymoukda asked me to write for this incredible series, I struggled to find a center for the piece. While I make visual art and poetry, my primary art these days is writing in service to my Ph.D.…
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Notebook: Locating the Folk
by Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra a.k.a. Lady Xok
Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra, an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and co-founder of Electric Machete Studios, explores how pathways of migration and displacement in rural towns and urban neighborhoods affect local culture, and the potential of folk art to create belonging across difference.
Lady Xok at MN Original video shoot. Photo: Tania Galaviz.…
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We Are All We Have: The Practice of Neighboring
by Ashley Hanson and Mary Welcome
Ashley Hanson and Mary Welcome—both traveling artists working in rural places—team up to articulate their work as a practice of neighboring, in order to show how mutual exchange, compassion, and care can shift the narrative of artistic success.
Some questions without answers, conversational flashcards by Nicole Lavelle. Photo: Mary Welcome, 2018.…
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Getting to the Golden Hour
by Michele Anderson
Michele Anderson, the Rural Program Director at Springboard for the Arts in Fergus Falls, explores how insider/outsider narratives shape perceptions about rural places, and how the complex ways we relate to a place can give rise to our responsibilities within community.
Image of flooded access road from "13 Roads in Otter Tail County," a short film by Nik Nerburn.…
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Towards a Local Practice
by Matthew Fluharty
Matthew Fluharty, the incoming guest editor of Mn Artists, outlines the vision for his editorial series focused on “local practice”—challenging urban-normative ideas not just about place, but also about audiences, outcomes, disciplines, and the temporality of artistic work.
Matthew Fluharty, “Family Video”. August 18, 2016.…
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Conjuring Homelands
by Nicole Asong Nfonoyim-Hara
Writer and ethnographer Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara responds to Mn Artists Presents: Jovan C. Speller, Choosing Home: A Right, A Privilege or an Act of Trespass, which took place at the Walker Art Center earlier this month.
Rosy Simas, transfuse: a breathing, contemplation, clearing, a transition. Photo by Carina Lofgren, courtesy Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.…
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Black Is a Country
by Wendy Thompson Taiwo
Some of the most important dialogues we engage in as artists are the ones we have with those we love. In this piece, developed through Penumbra Theatre's My America project, Wendy Thompson Taiwo addresses her daughter in a tender dialogue on the challenge of engaging with whiteness as someone with black identity in America.
“black girl magic” by Johnny Silvercloud is licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.…
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