Lanesboro Arts is pleased to welcome Minneapolis-based ceramicist Chloe Bischoff as the Lanesboro Artist-in-Residence from April 1 – April 30.
During their residency, Bischoff will connect residents with the inert materials that make up the land around them through the mediums of clay and storytelling.
Everything from Lanesboro’s geography to its built environment have been shaped by the people and materials which exist there, from the steep bluffscapes that shape the river valley to the rich historical brick facades downtown. To explore this entanglement, Chloe will invite community members to collect soil samples from significant places in their lives, and incorporate them into clay to create a series of ceramic totems. The resulting collection of sculptures will tell a story about Lanesboro’s human and material community.
The community is invited to participate in a series of free public workshops and events, starting with a Welcome Potluck on Thursday, April 2nd. Folks will also get the opportunity to explore with clay in a set of hand-building workshops. Bischoff is offering two opportunities to attend each workshop, so that more people are able to engage with the totem-making process. The residency will culminate in a Capstone Presentation of the finished catalogue of totems and their respective stories on Wednesday, April 29th. The project will stand as a monument to Lanesboro residents’ varied relationships to the land. Those who made totems will be invited to take their finished piece home.
Residency Events:
- Thu, April 2nd, 5:00 – 7:00 pm: Welcome Potluck and Presentation
- Fri, April 10th, 6:00 – 7:00 pm & Sun, April 12th, 3:00 – 4:00 pm: Soil Collection and Pinch Pot Workshop
- Sat, April 11th, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm: Story Sharing Table at Lanesboro Winter Farmers Market
- Fri, April 17th, 6:00 – 7:00 pm & Sun, April 19th, 3:00 – 4:00 pm: Land Totem Making Workshop
- Wed, April 29th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm: Capstone Presentation
About Chloe Bischoff
Chloe Bischoff is a sculptor and ceramicist whose work investigates the millennia-old relationship between humans and clay. Their work investigates this relationship, beholding clay as an emissary of matter through which to explore themes of animism, selfhood, and queer ecology—concepts that dissolve boundaries between living and nonliving entities and reimagine nature as an non-hierarchical, entangled network of vibrant matter. Chloe sees their process as reciprocal interaction between themself and the clay rather than as a utilization of an inert medium.
About the Lanesboro Early Career Artist Residency Program
Since it began in 2001, the Lanesboro Early Career Artist Residency program has welcomed artists of all disciplines to live, work, and create in the rural context of greater Lanesboro. Supported through 2027 by the Jerome Foundation, the program awards two to three residencies per year to early career artists with projects that activate the people & places of Lanesboro while instigating positive change. The program is unique in that it provides an entire rural community and its myriad assets as a catalytic vehicle for engagement and artistic experimentation, with staff working with each resident to create a fully-customized residency experience. For more information, visit lanesboroarts.org.
