Past: Southeast's Catapult Creative House Presents “Sunshine State Queer: Making Art at the Height of the Anthropocene”

Janie Stamm, a craft-based artist from St. Louis, Missouri, will present “Sunshine State Queer: Making Art at the Height of the Anthropocene” as part of the “After Hours: Conversations on Art and Culture” lecture series at Southeast Missouri State University’s Catapult Creative House.

The presentation, which is free and open to the public, will explore what it means to be an artist and activist at the same time.

Artists have often served as the conscience of the culture to which they identify. Whether through documentation or interpretation, they are often the catalyst by which political and social issues are perpetuated. This series will feature creatives who have made work (visual art, film, poetry, prose, etc.) about issues affecting their communities.

Stamm holds a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis. Last year, she received the John T. Milliken Foreign Travel Graduate Award, a Regional Arts Commission grant, a Dubinsky Scholarship to study at the Fine Arts Work Center and the Frida Kahlo Creative Arts Award from Washington University in Saint Louis. Her work was featured on the cover of the December 2016 issue of Poetry magazine. Stamm has shown work throughout the country, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and throughout the St. Louis regional area. She recently was in an artist-in-residence at ACRE in Wisconsin and at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. She is currently a teaching artist-in-residence at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis.

In her craftivism-based art practice she explores how to bring activism into the artist’s studio. Born and raised in Florida, Stamm’s practice seeks to preserve Florida’s queer and ecological history in the face of climate change.

Visitors are welcome to tour the entire Catapult facilities including the Southeast Missouri State University Department of Art and Design students’ studios upstairs, as well as the Catapult Creative Shoppe, which features student work and local business products.