The Great Northern presents: CONSERVATORY XR.
In tandem with the physical installation, CONSERVATORY XR is a metaverse art gallery featuring 15 additional local artists curated by Jovan C. Speller and Andy DuCett. The work featured here was created by Black Minnesotans during the uprisings and highlights methods of survival and shows how innovation and creativity can thrive. Meet the artists, onboard, and enter the space below. |
MEET THE ARTISTS
Ashley DuBose - @ashleydubose
Bobby Rogers - @bobbyrogers_ Jayanthi Rajasa - @dotfrofeather Addis Alemu - @addiiiissss Donna Ray - @spiritmovesdonna Coco Nashay - @coconashay Yunior Rebollar Carbonell - @negrofinocubanegrofino |
MMYYKK - @mmyykkvibes
Junauda Petrus-Nasah - @junauda Nance Musinguzi - @afrikansniper Lewiee Blaze - @lewieeblaze Ron Brown - @afroanimeillustrator_ronbrown Christopher E. Harrison - @genothehag Kellan McLemore - @kellandavid Raygen Samone - @raygensamone |
WATCH THIS FIRST
Enter CONSERVATORY XR
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COCO NASHAYNakesha Caldwell is an internationally known designer and artist who is passionate about helping single mothers thrive in a state of wellness despite life’s hurdles.
She is a fourth generation north Minneapolis resident who has been a servant of the community she continues to live in and support. WEBSITE |
DONNA RAYI am an African American ceramic artist/writer of many past multicultural heritages from beyond. Severely visually impaired since birth, I’ve worked in my chosen discipline of the clay arts for over twenty years. I was selected to be the BISQUE Emerging Artist in Residence for Northern Clay Center (NCC) in 2019 and now in 2021 I retain a studio residence at NCC. Even through the strange year of 2020, I stayed busy in the arts as one of the participating artists in the Minneapolis Black Lives Matter public art street mural on July 18, 2020 (designing and painting the letter I), creating the "Zip Code" project, and the "Messages in a Bottle" project which is ongoing and was a part of the Messages of Hope Mini-Grants through Forecast Public Art. I also wrote an article for Studio Potter "Imagination Never Dies: A Resident Artist’s Coming of Age". The "Messages in a Bottle" project was born during the initial quarantine in March 2020 when the whole state was shut down due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and I had to create a staycation studio inside of my one-bedroom apartment home. I had no tools or clay supplies at home and had to start from scratch, getting a ride from Metro Mobility to Continental Clay to pick-up the supplies for the home studio. Had to get as much clay as I possibly could before everything shut down, and that is how the “Messages in a Bottle” was born.
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KELLAN McLEMOREKellan David is an interdisciplinary creative using the versatility and range of his creative talents/artistic style to spread love and compassion and to make a positive impact on the world. With a current focus on large scale art and new opportunities in the digital art space, Kellan incorporates a wide range of materials and design processes to pursue artistic challenges, ranging from commercial design to fine art and murals. Despite no formal artistic training he has an acute understanding of creative and visual elements and exhibits an innate ability to combine a variety of techniques, elements, and sources of inspiration to produce an end product that is aesthetically pleasing and capable of evoking emotion.
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JAYANTHI RAJASA Jayanthi Rajasa is an archivist songstress collecting songs that speak to her struggle and empowerment and ability to be, change, and move forward while honoring the unremembered changers and movers of yore. She sings for people passing worlds (new or old or hardly used---meaning births and children, hospice and funerals, free and incarcerated, loved or lost) and has been in more than 10 bands in The Twin Cities
Jayanthi is born of an East Indian Man and a Afro-Indigenous Woman. She loves the Theater! She loves being a teaching artist to every age and ability and holding song or poetry circles. She loves healing. She continues to work with the Million Artist Movement to dismantle racism and injustice towards people of color and dream collectively to produce actions for change and Black Liberation. Jayanthi also works with Mama Mosaic on Minnesota Girls Are Not For Sale seeking freedom for women and girl sex slaves in Minnesota. |
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RAYGEN SAMONERaygen Symone is a Documentary Photographer in Minneapolis, MN that creates images to cultivate home towards wonder, delight, wisdom and gratitude.
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RON BROWNMultidisciplinary Afrocentric artist in MPLS.
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YUNIOR REBOLLAR CARBONELLYunior Rebollar is a mixed media artist primarily working in portrait drawing and digital manipulation. Originally from Cotorro in La Habana, Cuba, Yunior now resides in Northern Minnesota. Yunior's work focuses on closing gaps and building bridges to both real and futuristic representations of Blackness. His work establishes origins of reflection, occupying the visual space of Black representation and starts from an attitude of acceptance. An acceptance of the yet undefined nature of Blackness. His work restores and reveals an authentic view of Blackness as a paradigm – as a container of a vast and primal culture, full of knowledge and philosophies that are still utilized.
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