Great Lakes Almanac
May 2022 - September 2023
The Great Lakes Almanac was my first community-based project and involved a partnership with Duluth’s Great Lakes Aquarium and its visitors. Twice each month, I set up a table on site to engage with visitors and discover the different ways they experience wonder at the museum. While the younger folks participated in a craft, their older relatives helped fill out a monthly survey of nature-based questions. Their responses, in turn, inspired the artwork: 12 paper sculptures whose diorama-like quality invite the viewer in for a closer look at the details. While the main pieces hint at the stories shared by the visitors, a collection of companion pieces offer a textual representation of their answers. Also on view were artworks by kids from Aquarium summer camps and an interactive display of the survey questions and responses.
See more of the exhibit photos here.
Examples of survey questions & answers:
If you could ask one of the tide pool animals about their life, which species would you choose and what would you ask?
“Starfish, can you see the stars in the night sky?” - Katie H, Madison, MS, age 70
Describe your most memorable experience on or around Lake Superior.
“Once I found a really cool rock. It was like the world because it had so many layers and the center was really red.” — Corbin W, Lakeville, MN, age 8
The Great Lakes Aquarium was the perfect choice for my first community-based art project. My artwork is inspired by natural history, and is a platform for me to explore human’s relationship with the natural world as an observer and collector. So the chance to work with and exhibit in a science-based museum in my hometown was ideal. There is a strong focus on engagement and education at the Aquarium and everyone on staff embraced my project and helped me to make the most of my visits. It was been a spectacular year. In so many ways, the art is embedded in the experience of the year even more so than the artwork itself. I have been enriched by the conversations with visitors and staff, the stories of how the community connects to their natural surroundings and the joys and challenges of turning their words into artwork. My hope is that viewers of the Great Lakes Almanac exhibit were drawn into details, noticed aspects of the museum in the content, and recognized the vast and varied input from their community in the making of this show. Much like how the Aquarium encourages visitors to “Discover Wonder,” my installations aim to inspire a sense of curiosity.
Susanna received support from both the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council and Minnesota State Arts Board over the duration of this project. This activity is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
