Artist STATEMENT
FERAL BIoME: SHADOW WORK
AMANDA MCELRAy HUNTER
I live in Duluth, MN at the shore of Lake Superior, holding 10% of the world’s fresh water and at the edge of The Boundary Waters, an ecological carbon sink supporting miles of Boreal Forest, wetlands, and endangered species. Our region is constantly under threat by industries that want to exploit and profit from these natural resources. Pair that with socio-economic inequity and issues around protecting indigenous cultures. Feral Biome combines analog and digital visual art processes placing these concerns in the framework of the human compulsion to tell stories - fairytales, myths, folktales. Humans tell stories to understand ourselves and our world.
Feral Biome is a call to viewers to re-wild the imagination and consider new possibilities for addressing climate change in our tangled Northwoods biome. To have courage, embrace wonder, joy, science, and magic, while confronting the enormity of problems facing our communities. The people of this region are creative and resilient by nature: they tell good stories, they work to conserve the land, they love to go outside and play and explore - both adults and children.
Feral Biome is a way to take these creative impulses and practice imagining new outcomes for our stories, allowing people to play with archetypal symbols and metaphors commonly used in the history of storytelling to create their own myths and fairytales. This installation is a call to adventure allowing participants to go on a hero’s journey and take a metaphorical hike through the boreal forest.
About the Artist
Amanda McElray Hunter is a multimedia artist whose work is deeply rooted in the geographical location of northeast Minnesota and involves the exploration and reinterpretation of fairy tales, myth, fables, and folktales into her current-day context. Her undergraduate work included studies at Pratt Institute and FIT. In 2002, she received a BFA in Design from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts; and in 2010 she received an MA in Theology and the Arts from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. In addition to her local curatorial work promoting Minnesota artists, she served as Chair of the Downtown Duluth Arts Collective for five years and currently serves as a Commissioner on the Duluth Public Arts Commission.
amandamcelrayhunter.com
@amhunter
Amanda McElray Hunter is a fiscal year 2023 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.