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Ignite Rural Artist ShowcaseSaturday, April 26, 2025
5 – 7 CDT
The YES! House, 726 Prentice Street, Granite Falls, MN
You are invited to join Department of Public Transformation at The YES! House (726 Prentice St., Granite Falls, MN) on Saturday, April 26th from 5-7pm for an open house, meet and greet, artist talk, and exhibition showcase featuring 6 rural artists and culture bearers from across the Upper Midwest that participated in this year’s Ignite Rural program!
At this event, each artist will share stories and artwork from their creative journey over the past eight months, in conversation with Ignite Rural Program Director, Holly Doll, Anpao Win (First Light Woman).
We hope you will join us for this incredible gathering of artists and showcase of talent in what is sure to be an inspiring evening!
Event Flow:
5-5:45 pm - Open House + Artist Meet & Greet
5:45-6:30 pm - Artist Talk + Q&A, featuring all 6 Ignite Rural Artists, moderated by Holly Doll, Anpao Win (First Light Woman).
6:30-7:00 pm - Open House
*Please note: registration for this in-person event is not required; the artist talk portion of the event (from 5:45-6:30 pm) will be available via livestream. Registration for the livestream will be available soon!
Ignite Rural artists that will be in attendance at this event include:
Austin Kasto (Fort Yates, ND)
Austin Kasto is Hunkpapa Lakota and Menominee. She grew up on the east end of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation on a cattle ranch with her grandparents. Austin is a mother of four children and a wife of 10 years. Growing up with her grandparents, Austin was very fortunate to learn the traditional Lakota teachings from them. This is where she learned beadwork, her beautiful Lakota language, sewing, parfleche making, regalia making, and traditional food preparation.
Bernadine Stevens (New Town, ND)
Bernadine Stevens is a Mandan, Hidatsa, Dakota, and Oglala Lakota ceramist. Stevens is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes located on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Bernadine is a recent alumna of Minot State University, having earned a Bachelors of Art in Art, specializing in ceramics. Bernadine creates ceramics pieces that incorporate designs from her beadwork, ledger art, and culture. While working in clay is her favorite, Stevens loves all forms of art, such as printmaking, painting, Native American Ledger drawing, and traditional Native American beadwork.
Markie Bear Eagle (Keystone, SD)
Markie Bear Eagle is an Oglala Lakota storyteller from Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. Markie’s love for storytelling began in his childhood with the Lakota stories his father shared. At one point being mute in his early life, Markie began writing and performing his own stories with a simple goal: to feel safe being seen. Markie was selected for Playwrights Realm’s Inaugural Native American Artist Lab for a staged NYC reading of his play ‘IGMU kiŋ na PAHA kiŋ’. Markie was also a fellow of Native American Media Alliance’s 5th Annual Native American Animation Lab. Markie’s recent medium has been through short film media of his spoken word poems. From being mute to spoken word poetry, acting, playwriting and becoming a professor at his tribe’s college, Markie is on a path to share his voice in every way possible.
Reyna Hernandez (Gayville, SD)
Reyna Hernandez is a painter and muralist who feels a deep connection to her homelands and Indigenous roots. Reyna grew up in southeast South Dakota and is Ihaŋktoŋwaŋ (Yankton Sioux Tribal Member). Throughout her work, Reyna utilizes mixed media to investigate cultural/identity hybridity in relation to her Indigenous bloodlines and western influences. Reyna’s work examines the complexities of her relationship to culture and place and is heavily inspired by the many star quilters in her family history. Her work is an exploration of Lakota, Nakota & Dakota traditions and symbolism, and the many ways that western civilization has impacted Indigenous expression.
Cai Fisher (Bemidji, MN)
Cai Fisher is an Indigenous Trans artist, DJ, and performer from Cass Lake, Minnesota, within the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe reservation. Currently based in Bemidji, Minnesota, a town bordered by three different reservations, Cai has been a beacon of culture, identity, and resilience in a predominantly white community. With a passion for creating inclusive and safe spaces, Cai has been instrumental in fostering the growth of the local artist and LGBT+ 2 Spirit communities. Her work is more than just entertainment—it’s a powerful statement of visibility and pride for the drag, trans, and Indigenous communities. The use of music and dance has always been a critical part of Cai’s work in the community; Her belief in sound and movement as healing instruments is deeply rooted in her culture. Through her performances and events, she continues to provide a platform for others in her community to feel seen, safe and celebrated.
Boatemaa Agyeman-Mensah (Ham Lake, MN)
Boatemaa Adoawaa Han Mee Agyeman-Mensah is a GhanaianKoreanAmerican poet from Ham Lake, Minnesota. Her writing has appeared in Cellar Door, COUNTERCLOCK Journal, and the Carolina Review. Boatemaa is interested in how the interiority of poetry is fundamentally bound to things beyond the individual, such as community care and political change. In the past three years, she has taught youth art and poetry classes in Waseca, Minnesota to help combat rural brain drain. She has worked with poet, Tyree Daye, to design and teach an undergraduate course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill dedicated to poetry as critical theory. Additionally, she has held a fellowship at PEN America and the Artists at Risk Connection to defend persecuted artists worldwide. Currently, she serves as co-director of COUNTERCLOCK x PATCHWORK, an interdisciplinary poetry-film collaborative fellowship.
To learn more about each artists, visit www.publictransformation.org/igniterural
About Ignite Rural: Ignite Rural is an “at-home” artist residency focused on uplifting and supporting emerging rural artists that engage in social/civic work. To be considered for the program, artists must reside in rural communities with a population of 20,000 or less within the colonial state borders of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the 23 Native Nations that share that geography, with priority given to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Native artists and culture bearers. Ignite Rural 2024-2025 operates as an 8-month cohort model to connect rural artists with each other, provides digital learning exchange opportunities, and supports rural artists in their social and civic work within their communities.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The YES House, 720 Prentice St, Granite Falls, MN 56241-1541, United States,Granite Falls, Minnesota
