Sarah E. Jenkins

My work is inspired by post-industrial landscapes, labor, and experimental animation practices. I explore ideas and images of coal mining/natural resource extraction, acts of disappearing, and labor that is repetitive and unseen. I work primarily in experimental stop motion animation and sound, though my work is rooted in drawing and an ongoing social practice. My conceptual framework grew out of my lived experience and family history in rural northern Appalachia. I grew up playing on coal slag heaps in the Allegheny Mountains. My grandfather was a 5th generation coal miner and my grandma worked in a textile factory as a young woman. My family sold mineral rights to a fracking company when I was a teenager. In addition to these histories, my work comes out of research, materials experimentation, and site-responsive animation in outdoor environments.

Sarah E. Jenkins, Still from Patch Work, 2017, Stop motion animation and Video with sound, HD Video, 00:06:26

Sarah E. Jenkins (she/they) is a queer, Boston-based multidisciplinary artist from northern Appalachia. They create experimental stop motion animation, drawing, and social practice about coal and natural resource extraction, post-industrial stories & landscapes, and invisible labors. She is currently working on a stop motion animation that explores extraction and disappearance. Jenkins is graduate faculty at Massachusetts College of Art & Design, lecturer at SMFA at Tufts Univeristy, and is the animation teaching assistant at Harvard University. Their work has been exhibited in the northeast and internationally, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Wheaton College, The Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany (LSVD), and GRRL HAUS Cinema (Berlin and Boston). Jenkins is a MacDowell Fellow and will be an artist in residence at Marble House Project during the summer of 2022.

Valerie Skakun

Skakun’s red blood cells are mutated, spherically shaped and fragile; at age five they became severely anemic and underwent an emergency splenectomy. For decades, as a way of survival as a chronically-ill. person, they have researched ways to create healthy microbiomes and increase the operation of immune systems in order to improve cell function. The philosophy of their recent body of work is informed by being routinely-sick, learning to walk again after a serious bicycle accident, and regrowth after atrophy. They have explored sculptures as objects of ritual, collaborative movement, and play, ranging from time-based devotions to endurance trainings in order to transform mental and physical states of being. The materials and rituals which aid in maintenance of a disabled body inform the materials and processes used in their sculptures.

Image Description: A plastic strainer which holds Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeasts, that resemble cauliflower or curdled cheese, rests upon the lip of a large bowl filled with milk kefir. Behind the bowl are various scattered objects and artifacts arranged on colorful cutting mats: 3D objects made of Beneficial Bacteria Biodegradable Milk Polymer, strained wildflower bundles leftover from fermented tea, prescription bottles, a hospital bracelet, blue jay feathers, blown blue eggs, a dollar store graph composition notebook with a pen on top, and a light therapy lamp.

Valerie Skakun is a multidisciplinary artist based in NYC, where they received a BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and an MFA from Hunter College of The City University of New York. They collectively co-exist with and care for several communities of microorganisms. They are appreciative to the Canada Council for the Arts for awarding a Digital Originals grant, New York Foundation for the Arts for a City Artist Corps Grant, Queens Council on the Arts for two SU-CASA grants, PlySpace Residency Program for a Resident Artist Fellowship and a private living space + studio during COVID (2020), ChaNorth for a private living space + studio during COVID (2021), Vermont Studio Center for an Artist Opportunity Fellowship, and to Highly Authorized for a fully funded residency.