OUR 2026 ARTIST RESIDENTS

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I am a composer, songwriter, and educator who has called Minnesota home since 2015. My work is grounded in queer mythic storytelling through music. I am a frequent composer and collaborator with theater performances, I have performed my original work regionally and nationally, and self-released four albums of original music.

@carlisleevanspeckmusic

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@ellebeast

Jason Rabuck is a singer-songwriter based out of Ely, MN. He is an inventive and tasteful instrumentalist on both harmonica and guitar. His bluesy style crosses over to multiple genres and nothing inspires Jason more than whoever he is playing with – or playing for at the moment.

@jasonrabuckmusic

Sarah is an Ely-based artist whose work is inspired by the wild beauty of the northwoods and the everyday wonder of life outdoors. Drawing on experiences with her children, she captures the natural world through a lens of curiosity and magic, translating forests, lakes, and wildlife into whimsical art that celebrates life in the North.

https://www.facebook.com/littleforestlife

@thelittleforest

Jacob is a seasoned filmmaker with 15 years experience spanning narrative, documentary, and commercial work. He doesn't just make movies. He makes love letters to the communities he partners with.

@jacobdavidwhite

John Michael DiResta is a multi-disciplinary theater artist and professor. His work as a director, adapter, playwright, deviser, solo performer and dramaturg focuses on new work development, site-responsive theater, community engagement, and queer liberation. He is currently leading a multi-year queer community-building endeavor excavating lost queer plays.

Bluesky: JohnnyEmDee

@JohnnyNDisguise

Arit Emmanuela Etukudo (she/her) is a Nigerian-American artist whose practice deals with the fluidity and metamorphosis of Black identity through self-portraiture, moving image,
installation, and performance art.

@Arit_Emmanuela

Frances Gootman, “Frankie”, resides in Savannah Georgia. Her deep appreciation for analog making and process based artwork lead her from a career in graphic design to an MFA in Fibers from Savannah College of Art and Design where she now works as a professor of Foundational Studies.

@mindyourownprocess

Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet and essayist. He is the author of 2000 Blacks, winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, and 2024 Florida Book Award Gold Medal in poetry. He is a former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Poetry at Colgate University, and has received a creative writing grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. He lives in Florida

@jibo-jhybo

Dina Vovsi is a director, theatermaker, and educator. She is a 2025-2026 Resident Artist at the cell, a 2026 New Georges Audrey Resident, and co-facilitator of the New Georges Jam. "River Watchers," a traveling site-specific play she conceived and co-created with playwright Dan Caffrey and performer and canoeist Jens Rasmussen on a 14-seat Langley canoe in Superfund site Newtown Creek, was called “a one-of-a-kind night of theater that embraces the size of our city’s history and humanity’s place in it." She teaches directing at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

@dinavovsi

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Maggie Bergeron has been dancing, choreographing, curating, producing, teaching, improvising, and writing for 25 years in Minneapolis. Her work has been seen at Studio Z, the Southern Theater, Red Eye Theater, Walker Art Center and Bryant Lake Bowl, Interlochen Arts Academy, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and Keshet Dance Company.

@maggsber2

Nick Gaudette is a bassist, educator, and collaborator who bridges classical training with creative performance experimentation. He co-directs all orchestras at Edina High School while co-creating with life partner and choreographer mover, Maggie Bergeron.

Facebook.com/nicholas.gaudette.7/

Kali Higgins writes essays, poems, and short stories about how her experiences as mother, transracial adoptee, and spiritual seeker intersect with healing and her relationships to others and the world. When Kali isn’t writing or being a mom, she offers astrology readings, wellness coaching, yoga classes, and sound healing.

@kalihiggins

@k_a_l_i_mn

@patternsofintelligence

Erik Pearson has been creating paintings, sculptures, and murals for over twenty years. His public art career includes twenty four public murals, and eight installations, working with city officials, community groups, and business owners in the process.

@erikpearsonart

Rachel Beglin is a shepherd, poet, and coffee enthusiast. She lives with her animals in northern Minnesota.

@cowboy.poems

Substack = Rachel Beglin, "Ruminating"

Tracy Frizzell is a painter from Minnesota that specializes in landscape and waterscape painting. When she’s not working in her art studio located in Minneapolis, she can be found traveling the forests, lakes and trails of the Great Lakes states looking for painting inspiration.

@tracyfrizzell

Mikey Marget (they/them) is a Minneapolis-based cellist and songwriter. Their instrumental music combines traditional folk with modern electro-acoustic elements, while their singing tunes address topics including: the joy of community connection, personal and collective mental health, queer experience, and climate.

@mikey.marget

EIKO MIZUSHIMA is a Japanese, Okinawan, Irish, mixed-race, mixed media artist, ecologist, occupational therapist, and mental health practitioner living in Mni Sota Makoce. Her work explores the liminal space between the art and science of the natural world. Eiko majored in biology at Macalester and OT at Saint Catherine University.

@eikoologies

@eikointegrativeot

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Pamela Sherlock is a lens-based artist and 2023–2024 Minnesota Upstream Fellow. Her work investigates prairie ecosystems through photography and metal leaf, exploring the tension between human-imposed order and ecological necessity.

@antirrhetikos

Diane Wilson is a writer, educator, and bog steward, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She has published five award-winning books as well as numerous essays. Her novel, The Seed Keeper, was selected for the 2025 NEA Big Read. Wilson’s work explores seed sovereignty, social justice, cultural recovery, and environmental stewardship.

@dianewilsonwords

Peter is a Cuban-American playwright whose works include This Space Between Us (Keen Company) and Ritu Comes Home (InterAct). His plays have been developed by Page 73, PlayPenn, Soho Rep, and The Playwrights' Center. He’s a former Jerome Fellow and a faculty member at Vassar College.

Petra Kuppers (she/her) is a disability culture activist and a community performance artist. She grounds herself in disability culture methods, and uses somatics, performance, media work, and speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. She teaches at the University of Michigan.

petrakuppers.com

Ritika Ganguly, Ph.D., is a trans-disciplinary practitioner who works across the sciences, arts, and philanthropy. Ritika’s artistic practice engages with orally transmitted genres of music, poetry, and narration. Her works explore power and hierarchy while creating a space where the stories of ordinary citizens can be told.

ritikaganguly.com

IG- @aamalaki

Seitu is a 4th generation Minnesota artist, whose family taught him to love himself, love family, love community and love the earth. Working on his own or in collaboration, Jones has created over 30 large-scale public art works. He's been awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship, a Bush Artist Fellowship, a Bush Leadership Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts/Theater Communication Group Designer Fellowship. His artwork and life is based upon the premise of a beloved community.

seitujonesstudio.com

Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, and activist. She writes across genre and has published many award-winning books. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, Gibney teaches at Minneapolis College, where she was named Educator of the Year in 2023. She lives with her two children in Minneapolis.

shannongibney.com

Sharon Picasso (she/her) is a Minneapolis based movement, performance and transdisciplinary creative Artist and Founder/Artistic Director of Picasso Projects and Lupa Studio. Paramount in Sharon's collaborative process is cultivating an inclusive, respectful and sustaining creative environment where value is placed on the wholeness of an individual.

picassoprojects.org

IG-@yespicasso

Laszlo Upor is an award-winning Hungarian dramaturg, literary translator, essayist, and university professor.  He has translated more than fifty works for the stage by Caryl Churchill, Brian Friel, Tony Kushner, Marina Carr, Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard, and Tom Stoppard, among many others. Laszlo was acting Rector at the University of Theatre and Film Arts (SZFE) from March 2019 until his resignation protesting the Hungarian government’s aggressive takeover of the university. 

About Laszlo

Todd London spent 18 seasons as Artistic Director of New York's New Dramatists. A longtime faculty member at Yale, NYU, the New School, and the University of Washington (executive director of the School of Drama), he has published two novels and more than a dozen books about the American theater.  Todd was the first recipient of TCG’s Visionary Leadership Award for his service to the theater field.

toddlondon.net

Tomi Endter is a Brooklyn based Cree playwright and actor. Her work has been seen at The Public Theater as a part of the Emerging Writer's Group Spotlight Reading of INTO YOUR HANDS, in May of 2025, and was featured as one of the winners of the 7th YIPAP playwrights competition in 2022 for her play BUILT ON BONES.

tomiplaywright.cargo.site