What do we, womxn artists, scientists, activists, and organizers, know about submersion, swimming, sailing, sinking, and ultimately seeking the source of our collective power—and how do we know it? — Shanai Matteson
Artist, writer, community-based researcher, and Target Studio artist-in-residence Shanai Matteson will collaborate with social scientist Mae Davenport to answer that question. Shanai will also collaborate with comic artist, printmaker, and publisher Zak Sally to use posters, zines, and other popular print media to amplify and activate womxn’s stories of water and culture.
Image: Shanai leading a printing workshop at Yo Mama’s House in November 2019. Photograph by Boris Oicherman.
Shanai Matteson
Shanai Matteson is a visual artist, writer, and cultural organizer. She lives in rural Palisade, Minnesota, where she grew-up. Shanai is currently working to help organize cultural and community space at Akiing / Welcome Water Protectors, a pipeline resistance camp established by Indigenous women during the movement to stop the Line 3 oil pipeline. As a non-native woman whose family settled less than a mile from Akiing, Shanai sees her activist work here as a kind of service and repair, and a way to encourage a just transition for Indigenous and rural communities in the deep north. As an artist, Shanai creates visual and literary work to honor the complex and interdependent nature of identity, action, material, and memory.
Zak Sally
Zak Sally is an American musician and comic artist. He was the bass guitarist for the bands Low (1995 to 2004) and Enemymine (1998 to 2000) and is the singer and guitar player in The Hand. Sally is from Duluth, Minnesota, and owns and operates his own press, La Mano, in Minneapolis.
