August 17-24, 2024, Winona, MN
Residencies
Select participating artists from A Nation Takes Place will participate in residencies that allow each of them to deepen their respective practice to these site-specific and time-durational opportunities, each informed uniquely to the locations in which they take place. Part of the residencies' goal is to invest in contemporary artists and challenge the confines of museum galleries as the only site by which critical conversations and artmaking can take place. Existing side by side in different formats and scales, residency and exhibited artwork will draw dialogue on the wall, the page, electronically, in person, and through sound to recast the visuality of marine art and the violent formation of the nation-state.
Residency 1
Elana Mann (b. 1980, Newton, MA) is an artist and activist who explores the power of the collective voice and the embodiment of language. Mann is hard of hearing and researches the act of listening through sculpture, sound, works on paper, and public performances. Her rattles, trumpets, and other instruments are tools that galvanize the sonic energy of her work; together, they make a synergistic roar that embodies the voices of those who strive for social and environmental justice. She has participated in exhibitions and screenings at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, the Orange County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, among many others. She lives in Los Angeles where she is raising her two young kids.
Residency Summary
Participating Los Angeles-based artist, Elana Mann will take part in a 7 day residency at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum (Winona, MN), based on her ongoing practice of making ceramic rattles for rituals, protest and performance. The residency program is dedicated to forest preservation, science inspired art education and providing a peaceful retreat for artists and scholars who are interested in tackling the challenging issues of our time with power, resourcefulness, and imagination. With support from the Mellon Foundation, Elana Mann will build on her project, "Let the Mississippi Speak," a continuation of a larger ongoing work titled "Shake, Rattle, Roll" (2019-present) that involves over eighty ceramic rattles. These rattles function like sonic protest signs and she paints words, slogans, and symbols onto their surfaces. Each rattle has a unique message and form; Mann fills the rattles with different materials (glass, wood, metal) to create a distinct array of sounds.
The project draws from her own culture’s use of rattles in group rituals. Mann activates her rattles in protests and actions to promote immigration rights, Feminism, and environmental justice. For example, in 2023 her rattles were part of a large-scale art happening on International Women’s Day with 50 Feminist organizers from Los Angeles. She also experiments with the rattles at home with her two children to create new paths of communication within the family dynamic.
Over the past five years, "Shake, Rattle, Roll" has extended to many different locations. Groups around the country have either used the rattles or created original designs within their own communities. The project has been featured in multiple exhibitions, recently “Bellows and Quakes” (2024), a solo show at the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, as well as national press in Hyperallergic and The Forward. This year she produced rattle-making workshops at various locations, including Crossroads School for the Arts & Sciences, in Santa Monica, CA. She is eager to bring this project to Minnesota, to amplify energy and activism around the Mississippi, one of the most important yet endangered waterways in our county.