About the workshop:

The Cut Paper Lanterns workshop will be led by artist Sonja Peterson, whose intricate papercut works explore narrative, ecology, and global exchange. This hands-on experience offers participants a unique opportunity to work with a Minnesota Marine Art Museum exhibiting artist. Peterson previously exhibited at the museum in her 2022 exhibition What the Trade Winds Brought, and her work Empire Builder from that series is now part of the museum’s permanent collection, currently on view in the exhibition Fluid.

In this workshop, participants will learn Peterson’s storytelling approach to image-making alongside foundational papercutting techniques. Students will design and construct their own delicate, translucent paper lanterns, layering imagery and light to create luminous, narrative-driven forms.

About the instructor

Sonja Peterson builds networks of negative space into large-scale, intricate paper cutouts. Mazes of quiet colors and soft shadows give depth to sprawling representations of geo-political and environmental systems, such as the movement of invasive species. Inspired by odd connections, Peterson strives to reveal uncomfortable similarities in morally dissimilar subjects. Peterson enjoys her intricate methodology precisely because it affords her and her viewers the time to explore and question, to perceive and understand more of the whole.

Peterson exhibited her work in a solo exhibition at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Sonja Peterson: What the Trade Winds Brought, on view May 6 to September 11, 2022. Her piece Empire Builder, is in MMAM’s permanent collection and is currently on view in the gallery Fluid: What is marine art, and what can it be?

“These large works are created by hand cutting paper. My work depicts the impact of invasive species within a variety of eco-systems. I consider how our world has become so interconnected through trade and exploration. At one time all flora and fauna were strongly connected before the giant continent of Pangaea split to create independent continents and islands. Each continent or island then had time to evolve its own unique species. It is only in the last few hundreds of years that our world sped up, natural evolution has been sent in a tailspin as man has explored and traded all over the world very often unaware of passenger species that were brought along. Mankind unaware to what extent they were, reconnecting the world once again, as one, whether it was ready or not. Species were suddenly forced to confront predators that they had never known and had no evolved resistance to survive. Now the question is, does man step in and try to control Nature? How do we find balance in the delicate ecosystems, which have become intertwined and more imbalanced than ever?” - Sonja Peterson

“...Minneapolis artist Sonja Peterson needs little verbal narrative to explicate her large-scale paper works. Whole worlds exist within the intricate details of her complex cuttings. Native plants and cultures clash with invaders. Historical events merge with present-day environmental dilemmas. The effects of globalization are intertwined with commerce and consciousness...”

— Camille LeFevre, City Pages

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