Join us Thursday, September 24, at 6 pm, for a Dunkerley Dialogue
with artist Ruben Olguin, whose work with the Survival Kit Collective
appears in 500 Dams: Art, Ecology, and Radical Care at Anaya Springs,
and Tarah Rowse, Director of Sustainability and Environmental
Initiatives at Skidmore College. The discussion will give insights into
the exhibition, which opens two days later in the Winter Gallery.
Dunkerley
Dialogues pair Skidmore professors with artists in a conversation
format, which is often a catalyst for new connections and understandings
across disciplines, and can spark new ideas for all participants.
Dunkerley Dialogues are made possible by a generous gift from Michele
Dunkerley ’80.
This event is free and open to the public.
About the Speakers
Ruben Olguin
is a New Mexico-based artist and educator whose work explores how land
and culture are affected by technology. He works in a variety of media,
including ceramics, adobe, sound, and electronic media. Drawing from his
mixed Indigenous American and Spanish heritage, he uses traditional
hand processes and materials alongside modern elements. He divides his
time between the computer lab and the desert, aspiring to create and
teach media art through socially engaged practices.
He earned his
BA in media arts from the University of New Mexico and went on to
receive an MFA in electronic arts. Olguin has intertwined STEAM-based
learning and earthen electronic media to create community-involved
projects. In 2019, he received the Fulcrum Grant, which brought
community-based art into the Barelas neighborhood of Albuquerque, New
Mexico. His work has also appeared at the Currents New Media Festival in
Santa Fe, the Paseo Festival in Taos, the Hood Museum of Art in
Hanover, New Hampshire, Artspace in New Haven, Connecticut, and the
Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico.
He has taught at the University
of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and Florida SouthWestern
State College and is currently an assistant professor of art at Northern
New Mexico College.
Tarah Rowse is an energy and
sustainability professional who has worked across the public, private,
and nonprofit sectors as a researcher, professor, and manager. Rowse
holds a PhD in natural resources, with a focus on energy governance,
from the University of Vermont; an MS in public policy and management
from Carnegie Mellon University; and a BS in natural resource management
from Cornell University.
She has served as a Peace Corps
volunteer, political campaign manager, and associate with The Nature
Conservancy, and has previous campus sustainability experience at the
University of Vermont and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Rowse is a
former board chair of the Agricultural Stewardship Association, a
regional land trust that conserves farm and forest land. She, her
husband, and their two daughters returned to the area and built a
net-zero-energy home on the family farm. She is Skidmore’s director of
sustainability and environmental initiatives.