Contributors

Jane Lilly Benale (she/her), a Navajo woman and an accomplished weaver, dedicated her life to the home and the loom. She was born in a hogan in 1930 in White Ruins, Arizona and lived until her death in July 2022 atop the Black Mesa region of the Colorado Plateau in northeastern Arizona. At the age of eighteen, Jane was already a master weaver. Every spring, she would shear sheep and goats, then clean the wool and mohair to spin into yarn. She would gather juniper berries, yucca plants, cactus prickly pears, and the roots of plants to make dye for the yarn. At the time of her passing, Jane was a ninety-three year old matriarch. Due to her failing eyesight, she wove her last storm pattern rug at the age of ninety-one. In the final years of her life, she continued her teachings by telling stories, talking about the importance of water, sheep, the land, the home, and the Navajo language. She always reminded people of the sacred space and time that a weaving and a loom hold. Never finish a rug when it rains. Never give food to people through a loom. And always pray before you begin weaving.

Jeff Brown (he/him) likes to say that he holds a BS in BS (business services) from the University of Maryland University College. Over the course of his career, he has worked as a fireman, a professional triathlete, an entrepreneur, a diplomat, a ski guide, an avalanche forecaster, and a whitewater river guide. Jeff is the former director of the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Field Research Stations. He was a resident at the Sagehen Creek Field Station from 2001 until he retired in 2020. He now serves as the volunteer co-director of the Sagehen Art Program. In 2012, Jeff launched the Sagehen Forest Project, a collaborative community effort to address the risk of wildfire, involving ecologists, state and federal government agencies, the timber industry, environmental groups, interested NGOs, wildlife biologists, and concerned citizens. The group created a successful plan to restore forest health to the 9,000 acre Sagehen watershed, and the strategies have spread. Jeff now spends his retirement rowing a wooden whitewater dory, ski-mountaineering, and riding bikes in the western United States and France.

Ann Futterman Collier (she/her) holds a PhD in clinical and health psychology from UCLA and has worked in the area of community-based participatory research for over twenty-five years. She is currently a senior researcher at Southcentral Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska, and she previously served as an associate professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Northern Arizona University. Ann has extensive expertise conducting health research and program development ­with tribal communities and refugees throughout the Southwest, the Pacific Rim, and Alaska. She is also a fiber artist, passionate about social practice and community engagement. Her work has received several regional and national awards, including the 2018 Most Significant Artistic/Creative Work Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research at Northern Arizona University; a Viola Award for Innovation in the Arts from the Flagstaff Arts Council in Arizona; an Innovative Design Scholarship from the International Textiles Apparel Association (ITAA); and an Excellence in Fibers Award from Fiber Art Now magazine. Find out more about Ann’s artwork, research, and writing at facebook.com/Dr-Ann-D-Futterman-Collier-142051725910399/.

Nina Elder (she/her, they/them) is an artist and researcher whose projects reveal humanity’s dependence on and interruption of the natural world. With a focus on changing cultures and ecologies, Nina advocates for collaboration and fosters relationships between institutions, artists, scientists, and diverse communities. Her work includes drawings, performance, pedagogy, critical writing, community-based projects, and public art. She has had solo exhibitions across the country, including recent shows at SITE Santa Fe and Indianapolis Contemporary. Her artwork has been featured in Art in America and VICE Magazine, as well as on PBS; and her writing has been published in American Scientist and Edge Effects Journal. Nina is an affiliate artist of the National Performance Network. She has recently held research positions with the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, the Anchorage Museum, and the Art and Ecology Program at the University of New Mexico. You can view more of her work on her website, ninaelder.com.

Erin Espelie (she/her) is a filmmaker and writer whose poetic nonfiction films have shown at the New York Film Festival, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, and Whitechapel Gallery in London, among others. She is co-director of NEST (Nature, Environment, Science, & Technology) Studio for the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she is also an associate professor in the Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts and the Department of Critical Media Practices. Erin holds degrees in molecular and cell biology from Cornell University and experimental and documentary arts from Duke University. She has served as editor-in-chief of Natural History magazine since 2014. You can view examples of her cinematic work at erinespelie.com.

Faerthen Felix (she/her) spent her early career as a whitewater river guide, an avalanche forecaster, a ski patroller, and a mountain bike and ski guide. She also served brief stints as a videographer and a restauranteur, and she spent one weird season as an aerial spotter for a brine shrimp fishery on the Great Salt Lake. In 2001, Faerthen joined the UC Berkeley - Sagehen Creek Field Station as assistant manager. She retired from her full-time position with Sagehen in 2020 after nineteen years but continues to serve as volunteer co-director of the Sagehen Art Program. She also co-manages the Sagehen Herbarium and Collections Program. In her retirement, Faerthen divides her time between mountains and rivers, bikes and boats, and the western United States and France.

Kathie Foley-Meyer (she/her) is an artist, an arts consultant, and a PhD candidate in visual studies at UC Irvine. Her work is inspired by the history of the African diaspora and explores themes of interconnectedness, memory, visibility, and transparency. Two of her mixed media works, In the Wake: With the Bones of Our Ancestors and Privilege Grid No. 3 were recently added to the collection of the National Academy of Sciences. An avid arts advocate, Kathie has served on the board of LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions); she was part of the artist selection and advisory committees for Metro Art for the Expo Metrorail Line; and she has served on grant panels for the LA County Arts Commission. She is also the host and producer of Outside:Inside Radio, a podcast created by the Prison Arts Collective at San Diego State University, which highlights the creative work of justice-impacted and formerly incarcerated individuals. You may explore Kathie’s artwork on her website, kf-m.com.

Megan Gafford received her BFA from the University of New Orleans in 2011 and an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2016. In her studio practice, she repurposes unsettling scientific tools like radiation and cybernetics as art materials, to create work that commingles eeriness and elegance. Megan has shown her work with galleries and museums throughout the United States, including exhibitions with SITE Gallery Houston, David B. Smith Gallery in Denver, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Backyard Ballroom in New Orleans. Her essays have been published by Quillette, Arc Digital, and Areo Magazine. Currently based in Denver, Megan teaches painting and drawing at the University of Colorado at Denver. You can learn more about her work at megangafford.com.

Kim Hahn (she/her) is a full professor in the School of Fashion at Kent State University where she teaches both fashion design and fashion merchandising. She holds an undergraduate degree from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, and she earned both her MA in fashion design and her PhD in fashion merchandising from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research and creative work is influenced by cultural factors as well as current industry trends. Kim has created more than forty wearable artworks over the past decade, and her innovative designs have been included in numerous juried, invitational, and solo exhibitions. She has received several design awards from the International Textiles Apparel Association (ITAA), including the Sandra Hutton Award for Excellence in Fiber Arts; the Creative and Innovative Employment of Technique(s) Award; an Innovative Design Scholarship; and the Cotton Incorporated Innovations in Cotton Design Award. Kim has also received an Excellence in Fibers Award from Fiber Art Now magazine. In 2018, her scholarship and teaching was recognized by Kent State University with a President’s Faculty Excellence Award.

Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison (he/him and she/her) are widely regarded as leading pioneers of the eco art movement. They worked as a team from 1970 until Helen’s death at age ninety in 2018, and then Newton continued their work until his passing shortly before the release of this volume in 2022. Over the years, the Harrisons collaborated with biologists, ecologists, architects, urban planners, and other artists to uncover ideas and design strategies to support biodiversity and community development. Their concept of art embraced a breathtaking range of disciplines. The Harrisons’ projects focused on watershed restoration, agriculture and forestry issues, urban renewal, and urban ecologies, and their practice often involved serving as historians, diplomats, ecologists, investigators, emissaries, and art activists. The Harrisons’ visionary approach to their work expanded dialogue around previously unexplored issues, leading to practical solutions and implementations and–on occasion–changes in government policy. They also exhibited extensively with museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally, including events such as documenta 8, the Venice Biennale, and the Bienal de São Paulo. Find out more about their ground-breaking work at theharrisonstudio.net.

Cherish Marquez (she/her, they/them) is a Latina and Queer-identifying artist. She spent her childhood in Sierra Blanca, Texas and the early part of her adult life in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Currently, she lives and works in Denver. Cherish holds a BA in fine arts and creative writing from the New Mexico State University and an MFA in emergent digital practices from the University of Denver. She builds complex imaginary worlds through animations and game design. Her work explores environmental justice, mysticism, mental health, queer identities, generational trauma, and healing. Cherish’s practice is heavily informed by speculative futurism, which combines cultural practices of healing (Curanderismo) with new technologies to alleviate the earth’s trauma (mining, nuclear power, etc.). Discover more examples of her artwork on her website, cherishmarquez.com.

Indigo Moor (he/him) is the poet laureate emeritus of Sacramento, California. His fourth book, Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something, took second place in the Backwaters Prize competition sponsored by the University of Nebraska Press and was published in 2021. Jonesin’ is a multi-genre work consisting of poetry, short fiction, memoir pieces, and stage plays. Indigo’s previous award-winning books include Tap-Root, Through the Stonecutter’s Window, and In the Room of Thirsts & Hungers. Indigo is part of the visiting faculty for Dominican University of California, teaching poetry and short fiction in the MFA program. He is the former poetry editor for Bookends Review Literary Journal and sits on advisory boards for the Sacramento Poetry Center and the Modesto Stanislaus Poetry Center. A ten-year veteran of the US Navy and a twice-decorated Gulf War veteran, Indigo now divides his time between writing, teaching, and working as an integrated circuit layout designer for computer companies.

Edgar Cardenas (he/him) is an artist-scientist based in Detroit, Michigan. He holds a PhD in sustainability from Arizona State University and first became involved with Radio Healer in 2015 during his time in Arizona. In his 2019 book, Between Two Pines, Edgar outlines how an informed, engaged, and integrative art-science practice is essential if we are to address the complex sustainability challenges we face today. Through his interdisciplinary artwork, Edgar investigates the tangled sociocultural, ecological, political, and economic forces that shape human/environment relationships. His work emphasizes the need for communion with everyday ecologies to illuminate what is obvious but often overlooked: we are not separate from our environments or from one another. Edgar is currently finalizing his second book, Meanwhile in Detroit, exploring his relationship to wildness in the city. He is also an associate director for the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center, a consulting and research group at Michigan State University which facilitates collaborative capacity building with interdisciplinary teams and organizations.

Raven Deshalecoweney Kemp (he/him) is a Native American artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. A member of the Navajo Nation, as well as the Muscogee-Creek, Choctaw, and Euchee tribal nations of Oklahoma, Raven was raised in a family of artists with strong ties to the local Native community. His studio practice includes painting, printmaking, computer programming, and sound art. Over time, Raven has had opportunities to collaborate with Native and nonprofit organizations such as the Muscogee-Creek Nation, Native American Connections, the Phoenix Indian Center, Pueblo Grande Museum, and the Heard Museum. One of his most significant collaborations has been his ongoing involvement with Radio Healer, which he joined in 2012. Through his work with the collective, Raven has built indigenous electronic instruments, performed experimental music and sound, and served as a storyteller. He uses his creative expression to advance indigenous cyberpunk and science fiction.

Cristóbal Martínez (he/him) is Mestizo of the Genizaro, Pueblo, Manito, and Chicano people of Northern New Mexico. He holds a PhD in rhetoric, composition, and linguistics from Arizona State University and is currently chair of the Department of Art and Technology at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2003 Cristóbal co-founded Radio Healer; in 2009 he joined the art collective Postcommodity; and in 2018 he co-created the experimental electronic music duet Red Culebra. Cristóbal has dedicated his career to interdisciplinary collaboration, and he remains a prolific artist in all of these groups. Along with his partners in Postcommodity, he has exhibited work in the 18th Biennale of Sydney, the 2017 Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, and the Carnegie International, 57th Edition. The collective was awarded the Fine Prize at the Carnegie International, 57th Edition, and they have also received an Art of Change fellowship from the Ford Foundation. In 2021-22, in collaboration with Wapatah: Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University, Postcommodity presented Time Holds All the Answers–a major museum exhibition with a comprehensive monograph–at Remai Modern in Saskatoon.

Meredith Martinez (she/her) is a fiction writer based in Phoenix, Arizona. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her work focuses on intersections between socio-cultural and environmental forms of violence and explores the ways in which one finds meaning in one’s life and relationships in the context of climate-related instability, loss, and grief. Meredith is currently working on her first novel, Vulture, a near-future story of intergenerational friendship which extends realities of unchecked development, ecosystem destruction, water shortages, heat-related illness, and other vulnerabilities related to securing food, medicine, and shelter in the Sonoran Desert. Her writing has appeared in Contrary Magazine, the New Orleans Review, and Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web anthology, among other publications, and she served as an editor for the 2016 inaugural volume of Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, produced by the Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University. Meredith has been a member of Radio Healer since 2007.

Adrien Segal (she/her) is an artist based in Oakland, California. Drawing from landscape, science, history, and perception, her interdisciplinary work bridges the gap between scientific rationality and the emotional nature of human experience. A pioneer of data physicalization, Adrien has exhibited her art internationally since 2007, including shows with Ballroom Marfa, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the City of Homer, Alaska and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. She has participated in residencies across the United States, Canada, and Europe, and her artwork has been featured in publications including Making Data, American Craft, and Data Flow 2. Adrien holds a BFA from the California College of the Arts, where she currently teaches art and design. In 2022 Adrien was the US-UK Fulbright Scholar with the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee in Scotland. Visit adriensegal.com to explore more of her work.

Livy Onalee Snyder (she/her) holds a BA in art history and a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Colorado Denver and an MA in humanities specializing in art history from the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art, media archaeology, metal music studies, role-playing games, and queer studies. Livy’s passion for art has translated into successful internships with the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Denver Art Museum, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and Black Cube Nomadic Museum. She has written articles for Denver Art Review: Inquiry and Analysis (DARIA), Sixty Inches from Center, and Chat About. She has also interviewed artists for the Visual Resource Center in Chicago and for Black Cube’s blog. Livy currently works for punctum books–an independent, scholar-led publisher based in California–as a library associate, editing books. In addition, she serves on the board of Denver Digerati, curating reels for Supernova Digital Animation Festival. You can find links to more of her writing at livyonalee.com.

Esteban Fajardo (he/him) is a Los Angeles-based game designer whose work spans both commercial and art applications. He architects meaningful relationships between players and space, whether that space is a digitally constructed fantasy or a brick and mortar gallery. Esteban received a “Ones to Watch” award from BAFTA Games for his design work with Team OK on the abstract dueling game Chambara, which was released on Playstation 4 and PC in 2016. Since then he has explored various technologies such as VR with Skydance Interactive and custom game engines with Evening Star Studios. Esteban applies these experiences to his artistic collaborations with SWEAT, building responsive game systems that viewers often “play” without realizing that they have been drawn into a game. In his spare time, Esteban writes about game design for his website, estebanfajardo.com. Raised in Denver, he returns to the mountains every chance he gets.

Rafael Fajardo (he/him) is an artist, designer, researcher, and educator. Born in Colombia, he migrated with his parents to the United States in 1968 and grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Rafael earned his BA and BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is currently an associate professor of emergent digital practices at the University of Denver, where he is also core faculty for the LatinX Center and serves as a founding member on the board of advisors for IRISE, the Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of (in)Equality. In 2004, i-D Magazine named Rafael among the top fifty designers in the United States. Through his work with SWEAT, Rafael has been creating boundary-blurring videogames as an art form since 2000. SWEAT’s earliest games, Crosser and La Migra, were recently featured in ReVisión, a 2022 exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. Rafael has also collaborated with artists Adán De La Garza and Justin Ankenbauer under the moniker of Dizzy Spell to curate a series of pop-up artist game arcades. Learn more about his work at rafaelfajardo.com and sudor.org.

Chris GauthierDickey (he/him) is a computer science researcher with expertise in games, visual programming languages, and computer science pedagogy. He traces his roots to Laredo, Texas, where he grew up near the border of Mexico. He has collaborated with SWEAT on Migraciones as well as on the rewriting of their earliest games, Crosser and La Migra. Chris holds a BS and a PhD from the University of Oregon. He currently serves as chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Denver, where he has been a faculty member for over sixteen years. As chair, he is working with his department to develop a computer science curriculum which offers students a strong foundation in ethics, diversity, equity, inclusivity, and justice.

Xiuhtezcatl (he/him) is a musician, activist, model, and entrepreneur who pushes the envelope of what hip hop can look and sound like. His message and depth transcend his youth, yet his music is packed with hard-hitting grit. His thought-provoking lyrics are anchored by his Mexica roots on his father's side and by the passion for environmental justice work he inherited from his mother. Xiuhtezcatl served as youth director of Earth Guardians, a worldwide environmental organization, until 2019. Bilingual and skilled with code switching, he incorporates Spanish and English interchangeably into his music, which explores culture, legacy, identity, and his struggles as a young Indigenous man growing up as a minority in mainstream America. Xiuhtezcatl has performed and collaborated with artists such as Raury, WILLOW, and Jaden. He is one third of the emerging hip hop group Voice Runners, along with Los Angeles-based artist Tru and producer Jaiia Cerff. In 2020 the trio dropped a series of singles that culminated with the self-titled Voice Runners album. Xiuhtezcatl’s most recent album, XI:XI, was released in December 2021.