"Elephant Bed into the Sea," John Grade

This month, the Northern Initiative focus is on our artist-in-residence program. As adept observers, artists are uniquely poised to offer insights about the North from varied, nontraditional perspectives. In collaboration with the Institute of the North and the Rasmuson Foundation, the Anchorage Museum’s artist-in-residence program provides resources to support artists’ in-depth research and to incentivize art creation.

The artist-in-residence program will explore various perspectives on the North, which will be informed by the events the artists participate in, and will lead to future discussion and collaboration. Elements of the project will offer the public a way to engage with complex Northern issues through the lens of contemporary art narratives—contributing to the cultural health and well being of our communities while also offering an accessible way to connect and share information.

ARTISTS IN THE ARCTIC
The Artists in the Arctic residency program highlights Alaska’s place in the Arctic as a way to connect globally. Participating artists will use their work to cross cultures and borders as they address a complex North in transition. This three-year pilot program encourages collaboration between disciplines through forums, publications, exhibitions, presentations, summits, workshops, lectures, symposia and new artwork.

Our primary collaborator for the artists-in-residence program is the Institute of the North, which works on an array of critical issues related to Alaska’s Arctic. The institute’s organizational focus is on strengthening Alaska’s position in the Circumpolar North. As the Institute works to elevate dialogue in a way that fosters new and creative ideas, this collaboration with the Anchorage Museum will help connect artists with policy-makers, industry leaders, academics and everyday citizens.

This pilot artist-in-residence program spans Fall 2013 to Fall 2015.  Artists travel to Alaska and other Arctic locations.  They participate in Institute of the North programs, interact with each other, present their work publicly, and meet traditional and non-traditional researchers. The following year, the artists return to Alaska to present their research and help launch the next year’s artists into the program. Over time, a significant network of scholars and researchers will be developed.

Derek Coté
As a former explorer, frustrated architect and aspiring social examiner, Derek Coté received his MFA in sculpture and extended media at Virginia Commonwealth University and BFA at Western Washington University in sculpture and photography. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Tacoma Art Museum, Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Houston Center for Photography, Exit Art, AC Institute and Roebling Hall in New York City, Marmara University in Istanbul, Marc DePuechredon Gallery in Basel and Artwave Radio in Athens, Greece. In addition, Coté has received a professional artist fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, support grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission and was an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and the Arctic Circle, an artist and scientist-led research expedition to the high arctic.

Coté crossed America by car five times and visited 46 of the contiguous states and most Canadian provinces. As a result, travel and exploration have since become integral to his creative research for what they don’t provide – predictability, stability and safety. His work focuses on ideas of perception as a function of place and experience, and employs a wide range of materials and media. He currently lives in Detroit, Michigan and is an assistant professor at Wayne State University.

John Grade
John Grade received his BFA from the Pratt Institute (NY) in 1992 and has traveled extensively following his graduation, gaining critical exposure to the cultures and environments that have come to shape his artistic vision. Over the past decade, Grade has earned numerous grants and awards, including two 4Culture Special Projects Grants, three Artists Trust Foundation GAP grants, a Washington State Arts Commission and Artist Trust Foundation fellowship, an Andy Warhol Foundation Award, a Tiffany Foundation Award and residencies throughout the US and abroad. He has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums nationwide and his work has been featured in “Art in America,” “Sculpture,” “The Boston Globe,” and on the NPR program “All Things Considered” and WNYC’s “Studio 360.” Grade currently lives and works in Seattle, Washington.

Annesofie Norn
Annesofe Norn is a Danish artist based Berlin, working with installation and performance.  She is interested in relational projects, audience-involving installations and contemporary engaged exhibition work.  Through her work she investigates western understandings of economic, social, and scientific evaluations of Nature and established knowledge. Annesofie Norn holds a degree from Fine Arts and Scenography and is currently taking a post-graduate at Art in Context, UDK, Berlin. Over the past years she has collaborated with the group Motherboard, on projects such as The Desert Walker and The 8th Sister and Signe Lidén on sulten kommer mens man spiser, Tempo Passé and the ongoing project The Cold Coast Archieve on Svalbard, also in collaboration with CLUI and The Long Now Foundation (www.coldcoastarchive.org). Currently, she works at a durational artistic research station in North-west Greenland (www.longingfastforward.gl).

Tiina ItkonenBorn in Helsinki in 1968, Itkonen studied photography at the School of Art and Communication in Turku and at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. She has exhibited across Europe and her work is held in permanent collections at the Modern Museum, Stockholm, Helsinki City Art Museum, The Finnish Museum of Photography, and the Finnish State Art Collection. Itkonen was Finnish Young Photographer of the Year in 2003 and a Fotofinlandia finalist in 1996 and 2004. Her photographs are featured in the monograph 

Inughuit, published by Libruis Oy in 2004. The photographs are portraits of indigenous people of the Arctic.

Mark Ranis
Visual artist Marek Ranis incorporates social, political, and ecological issues into his multimedia work, which includes video, installation and sculpture. Originally from Poland, Ranis is currently an assistant art history professor at UNC Charlotte is currently working on the subject of “Albedo,” or Whiteness, within a social and historical context, which he started in response to his research into global climate change.  He is interested in looking at relations between climate change or environment in the context of post-colonial theory.