PLAYA ALUMNI

Shelley Jordan is a Portland, Oregon-based painter and moving-image artist who explores interior and exterior worlds and connections between past and present experiences. She uses traditional drawing and painting media applied to two-dimensional artwork, animation and...

In recent years – besides several architectural projects – Gregor Holzinger has been pursuing various transdisciplinary projects in/between the fields of Set Design, Video and Installation Art, which might be subsumed under 'site-/sight-specific installations' --...

Rooted in a connection to place and material explorations, Alex Arzt facilitates connections between human and nonhuman spaces by creating projects in the form of publications, interactive objects, workshops, group performances, lectures, videos, and experimental...

Jennifer Mannebach is interested in the borders and edges of where things collect, how boundaries are created and represented. Her visual language often conflates the architecture of the interior body with broader views of world maps and constructed barriers,...

Dawn Pichón Barron (Choctaw/Mexican/Euro) is Libra sun, Cancer rising, Cap moon—enough said. Born in Southern California, raised in rural Spokane, she resides at the southern tip of the Salish Sea with her wingman and (empty nest) dog-children, Lemi and Flaco. Story...

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke's authored works include (poetry) The Year of the Rat, Dog Road Woman, Off-Season City Pipe, Blood Run, Burn, Streaming, the forthcoming Look at This Blue, and a memoir, Rock Ghost, Willow, Deer, and a play, Icicles. She is the editor of ten...

Lee Arnold was born in London in 1972 and lives in Brooklyn. In his work he examines systems of natural phenomena using a variety of forms, including photography, animation, collage, drawing and sound. His diverse practice engages with perceptions of time, memory, and...

Millee Tibbs is a visual artist interested in photography’s ubiquity and the tension between its truth-value and inherent manipulation of reality. Her artistic practice is rooted in several lines of inquiry: an interest in the material properties of the photographic...

Forest Kelley is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Kentucky. He received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.  His work aims to develop agency where it has been eroded, whether it is in depicting the early history of AIDS in...

Julia Rigby is an artist who thinks about climate change and ecological relationships. She received her MFA in Studio Art at the University of California, Davis. She was a recipient of the Mary Lou Osborn Award, the Fay Nelson Award and Phi Kappa Phi honors at UC...

Cai Emmons is the author of seven books of fiction: the novels His MOTHER’S SON (winner of the Oregon Book Award), THE STYLIST, WEATHER WOMAN, and SINKING ISLANDS, as well as the forthcoming titles UNLEASHED (Sept.6,2022) and LIVID (Sept. 27, 2022). Her collection of...

Rebeca Douglass is a Pacific Northwest native who in thirty years as a Californian has learned to love the dry lands of the West. When she’s not hiking and adventuring, she writes: the Ninja Librarian books of tall tales for children, a series of “cozy” murder...

Corrine Teed is a research-based artist working in printmaking, installation, time-based media, and social practice. Their work lives at the intersections of queer theory, ecology, critical animal studies, and settler colonial studies. Much of their creative practice...

Maria Rebolleda-Gomez is a microbial ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvin. She is originally from Mexico City and did her undergraduate degree in Biology at UNAM (the National University in Mexico) and her PhD at the University...

Katharine Spilker is a visual artist native to Washington State, currently living in Bellingham on Coastal Salish and Nooksack tribal land. They received a double degree in English Literature and Painting & Drawing from the University of Washington in 2016....

Dawn Roe (b. 1971, Sault Ste. Marie, MI) works with still photographs and digital video in both singular and combined forms. Her projects examine the role of these media in shaping personal and social understandings of our environment through site-responsive...

As a nature illustrator, environmental educator, and author, Zebith Thalden aims to inspire a deep engagement with the natural world, rich celebration of the unknown, ecological stewardship, and a connection through shared wonderment. Her creative practice is devoted...

Katy Didden is a poet who is interested in the relationship between text and image, the history of the elegy, and creative writing and the environment. Her first book, The Glacier’s Wake, won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize from Pleiades Press, and was published in...

Rachel Shteir is the award-winning author of three books and many articles. Her books are cultural histories and biographies and her journalism has appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Rachel N. Levin is a biologist who studies the behavior of free-living animals in their natural habitats. She is specifically interested in animal communication and reproductive strategies. For over 20 years, first as a graduate student at Cornell University, later as...

Katie Miller was born and raised in the wilderness of Northeastern Minnesota, but is now deeply rooted in the Pacific Northwest. Her interdisciplinary practice is informed by her fascination with the temporality of our built and natural environments and how our...

“KatMeow” García is a bilingual Media Educator and Television and Film Director, and current Manager of Community Media Advocacy at Open Signal, Portland Community Media Center. They work with instructors and volunteers to support media education curriculum that...

Rebeca Alamo Gonzalez is a content designer. As a multi-passionate creative her con-conformity fuels everything she does to facilitate easier, vulnerable conversations across multiple mediums for people and planet.  She writes, designs, curates, and proofreads for...

For over 20 years Adam Kuby has been creating sculptures, temporary site-determined installations and permanent public artworks that have been integrated into wild areas, urban sites, streetscapes, parks, and other parts of our built environment. He has been an...