Daily Sitka Sentinel

Traveling Artists to Stage Road Show in Sitka

By SHANNON HAUGLAND

Sentinel Staff Writer

Gravel pits, hydroelectric dams, mines and bunkers are not what visitors usually ask to see in Southeast Alaska.

But those sites are some of what the artists aboard the Island Institute’s floating residency, Tidelines Journey, are after.

“Sites of industrial impact – it’s been amazing,” said Nina Elder, an artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Every community has wanted to take me on walks to hydro dams, gravel pits. They’re really wanting to share and explore their places with me.”

From left, Billy Joe Miller, Wendy Given, Jimmy Riordan, Peter Bradley and Nina Elder hang out on their Southeast transportation, Elder’s Chevy Astro Van she dubbed Horton, Wednesday next to the Island Institute building on Baranof Street. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

She is one of four Island Institute artists on the second year of the Tidelines Journey, “nomadic artists residency program utilizing the Alaska Marine Highway System to visit communities,” the Island Institute said.

The tour started in Bellingham, Wash., for a ferry trip to Southeast Alaska with stops at Ketchikan, Juneau and Gustavus, and then at Sitka. The other three artists are Wendy Given of Portland, Ore.; Jimmy Riordan of Alaska and Pennsylvania, and Billy Joe Miller of Albuquerque.

The four will give a public talk and slide show about their work and their trip through Southeast Alaska waters, as well as the journey up from the Lower 48 at 7 p.m. Friday at the Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi.

“It’s been a terrific trip,” said Island Institute executive director Peter Bradley. “Hopefully, we’re creating an experience that will resonate with us for a long time, and beyond that to facilitate dialogues, and introduce ideas in the communities. (We hope they also) resonate in the communities.”

Public presentations, school visits, local exploration and conversations have been part of every stop.

In Sitka, the group attended a reception at Island Institute headquarters at 304 Baranof Street, followed by Writers Read, where a few of them read. On Saturday, the Island Institute invites the public to an hourlong discussion on the theme at 5 p.m. All week, the artists have been working with teacher Hillary Seeland’s Literature and the Environment class at Pacific High School. 

The theme this year is “signal to noise,” a reference to an audio and engineering term which compares the level of a desired signal against the background noise interfering with it. The theme was inspired through conversations during last year’s Tidelines Journey, Bradley said.

“We heard from birders who increasingly struggle to hear bird song over the din of airplane and car noise, even in small-town Alaska,” Bradley said on the nonprofit organization’s website. “We heard whale researchers’ worries that boat engine noise interferes with communication between whales; we heard teenagers talking about the social din of a life of technological connection.

“More recently, questions of truth in media and government of raised similar questions that are close to the heart of this theme. Ultimately, the theme is about considering oppression and inequity in both our human and ecological communities, and also about thinking about how to navigate the overwhelming daily noise of media and technology, particularly in these times of political division.”

Elder describes herself as a research-based artist.

“I spend time exploring places and groups of people,” she said. She helped Bradley plan the trip, and feels that this activity alone is part of her process.

Her drawings and paintings bring attention to landscapes affected by human industry. Bradley said that for Elder an important part of this tour is the chance to “focus on the ethics and morals of our role, as travelers, artists, consumers, and citizens, within the cacophony of climate change.” 

She said she focuses on “invisible sites, camouflaged sites,” that perhaps humans aren’t intended to notice – or think about.

In Sitka, that will include the old World War II mines and bunkers.

Given is a photographer and sculptor, who describes her work as “more conceptual.” Outside her independent projects, she’s the curator of art in the Portland airport.

“I’m very interested in nature, folklore, myth and magic from all cultures, and the overlap, how the stories we know or learn about are related to disparate stories worldwide,” she said. In her written description of her art, she says, “My work possesses a keen sensibility in observing, documenting and seamlessly merging the natural with the otherworldly – or seemingly supernatural.”

Miller creates sculptures and other structures through collaborative processes with other artists or communities. He said on the Island Institute description that his practice “incorporates elements sourced from my immediate environs, transforming them into structures, shapes, and sounds that make it relatable to the human condition. Being in (and responding to) the natural landscape is my equivalent to church; I am moved by stories of transformation and the balance in nature and how natural systems rapidly adapt to changing conditions.”

 Jimmy Riordan splits his time between Alaska and Pennsylvania, and his projects have involved earth building, augmented reality, letterpress and translation. His work is often participatory and involves collaboration with other artists, craftspeople and social scientists. These days, Riordan says,  he “has been working on a body of art and curatorial projects that deal with the notion of memory as landscape.”

Bradley said he wanted to thank his funders for supporting the project, which he said is a “very unique residency program.” Those include Rasmuson Foundation through the Harper Arts Touring Fund, and administered by the Alaska State Council on the Arts, Bradley said. Other funding was from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Machamer Charitable Fund, the Juneau Community Foundation and Island Institute members. 

Donations will be accepted at the door at Friday’s presentation at the Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi.