Water Stories:New Work by Anne Labovitz

First Look Preview Party: About the Artists

Anne Labovitz

labovitz.com

(b. Duluth, Minnesota) lives and works in St. Paul, MN. Responding to today’s world, Labovitz makes artwork that challenges isolation, loneliness and disconnection by activating color and light in large-scale work. Local context and creating connections with others is embodied in my creative process and public interventions.

Current projects include: Two large-scale permanent public mosaic artworks at the MSP Airport (2021), 122 Conversations currently installed in MSP airport Terminal 2 (2019- 2022), the Belgrade Art Residency, Serbia (2021), Turn Up the Turn Out, a cohort of 22 artists dedicated to the promotion of voting and voting registration in Minnesota (2020), Response (2020), a body of new works responding to COVID 2020 isolation, an Outdoor fence installation in Berlin, Germany (June 2021), a site-specific participatory public art commission at the Redleaf Center For Family Healing (2021), I Love You Institute, a community-based art project, supported by a Springboard for the Arts community grant, and solo exhibitions at Art In Motion, Holdingford (2021), Concordia St Paul (2021), Minnesota Marine Art Museum (2022), and Rochester Art Center (2023). Previous exhibitions include: University of Raparin, Rania, Iraqi Kurdistan; Växjö Kunsthall, Växjö, Sweden; Petrozavodsk City Exhibition Hall, Petrozavodsk, Russia; Isumi City Hall, Isumi City, Japan; Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Canada; Tweed Museum, Duluth, MN; Athenaeum in La Jolla, CA; MSP Terminal 2, Minneapolis, MN; MSP Terminal 1, Minneapolis, MN; Crary Art Gallery, Warren, PA; Burnet Gallery, Le Méridien Chambers in Minneapolis; Talgut die Schönen, in Kunste, Germany; and the Chapman Art Center at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, NY. My artwork can be found in the following public collections: Minneapolis/St Paul Airport Collection; Frederick R Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; Minnesota Museum of American Art, St Paul; The Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth; The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA; Minnesota Historical Society, St Paul; International Gallery of Portrait, in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Växjö Kommun, City of Vaxjo, Sweden; Isumi City Offices, Isumi City Japan; University of Raparin, Rania Iraqi Kurdistan; and City of Petrozavodsk, Petrozavodsk, Russia. As part of her praxis, Labovitz connects to communities through activism, anti-racism, and public co-creation. I was a participant in the initial cohort of the Woke Coach, founding member of Racial Equity Committee at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the steering committee of Turn up the Turn Out. My current long-term social practice project is the I Love You Institute, an artist-led site-specific project urgently working with communities to address today’s world creatively. It combines art-making, social justice, radical kindness, and relational listening to normalize, saying “I Love You” as an alternative to division and conflict.

Erin Drummond

erindrummond.com

Erin Drummond (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, director, and educator. She creates interdisciplinary artwork in places ranging from the Sonoran Desert to their studio and continues to be interested in the body’s communicative power within the complexities of place, using movement research as a catalyst for personal, political and environmental change. Her work often explores mystery and the unknown, drawing philosophical and physical inspiration from forces of nature. Erin has performed and collaborated with numerous artists, companies and collectives nationally and internationally, including Rosy Simas Danse, Robin Stiehm's Dancing People Company, Coco Karol, K.J. Holmes, Amara Tabor Smith, Wicked Sister Dance Theatre, Labor Force Dances, Leyya Mona Tawil, Body Watani/Leila Awadallah, Sex&Money, and the MN Opera. Her creative work has been supported by the Minnesota Southeastern Arts Council, Savanna Moon Wildlife Refuge and MN Humanities Center. Erin's early foray into earth science as an undergraduate at Columbia University led her to continue studying ecological systems as they interact with human cultural phenomena. She has been a resident and visiting artist at the Savanna Moon Wildlife Refuge, Squawking Hawk Acres Permaculture Demonstration Site, Dhamma Dena Meditation Center, and Fundación Casa Cultural La Chispa (Colombia). Her choreography often explores the intersection between nature and culture and has been presented at a number of venues including the Walker Art Center, ACDA Gala at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Miller Theatre (NYC), LGBT Center (NYC), Hundred Grand (NYC), University of the South Pacific (Samoa), and for the United Nations in Bangkok. Erin is Assistant Professor of Dance and Dance Program Director at Winona State University and an active freelance artist based in Winona/Keoxa, Minnesota/Mne Sota Makoce, Dakota Land. She holds a BA from Columbia University and an MFA in dance through Hollins University, in collaboration with institutions in Frankfurt, Germany. She is also a certified yoga teacher, with an emphasis in vinyasa classes and vipassana meditation.

Liz Pearse

lizpearse.com

Finding joy in variety, Liz Pearse is a musician of many pursuits. Liz spent her childhood singing and playing any instrument she could find. After a brief stint as a clarinetist, Liz discovered the playground that is the human voice, and has been exploring ever since. Her uniquely colorful and versatile voice has led to performances of wide-ranging works from medieval to modern, and though Liz is known as a specialist in contemporary vocal repertoire, she enjoys a well-aged song. Liz often performs self-accompanied at the piano, but she has a voracious appetite for the camaraderie of chamber music. She is one-fourth of Quince Ensemble, a treble quartet dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary vocal literature. Their fourth album, David Lang’s love fail, is released on Innova Records in April 2020. Liz also performs with Damselfly Trio, a flute/harp/voice ensemble whose mission includes growing the body of repertoire for their unusual instrumentation. 

Photo:  Aleks Karjaka