Dunkerley Dialogue with Ruben Olguin and Tarah Rowse

Join us Thursday, September 24, at 6 pm, for a Dunkerley Dialogue with artist Ruben Olguin, whose work with the Survival Kit Collective appears in 500 Dams: Art, Ecology, and Radical Care at Anaya Springs, and Tarah Rowse, Director of Sustainability and Environmental Initiatives at Skidmore College. The discussion will give insights into the exhibition, which opens two days later in the Winter Gallery.

Dunkerley Dialogues pair Skidmore professors with artists in a conversation format, which is often a catalyst for new connections and understandings across disciplines, and can spark new ideas for all participants. Dunkerley Dialogues are made possible by a generous gift from Michele Dunkerley '80.

This event is free and open to the public.

About the Speakers

• Ruben Olguin: Ruben Olguin is a New Mexico–based artist and educator whose work explores how land and culture are affected by technology. He works in a variety of media, including ceramics, adobe, sound, and electronic media. Drawing from his mixed Indigenous American and Spanish heritage, he uses traditional hand processes and materials alongside modern elements. He divides his time between the computer lab and the desert, aspiring to create and teach media art through socially engaged practices. He earned his BA in media arts from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in electronic arts. Olguin has combined STEAM-based learning and earthen electronic media to create community-involved projects. In 2019 he received the Fulcrum Grant, which brought community-based art into the Barelas neighborhood of Albuquerque. His work has appeared at the Currents New Media Festival (Santa Fe), the Paseo Festival (Taos), the Hood Museum of Art (Hanover, New Hampshire), Artspace (New Haven, Connecticut), and the Albuquerque Museum. He has taught at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and Florida SouthWestern State College and is currently an assistant professor of art at Northern New Mexico College.

• Tarah Rowse: Tarah Rowse is an energy and sustainability professional who has worked across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors as a researcher, professor, and manager. She holds a PhD in natural resources, focused on energy governance, from the University of Vermont; an MS in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University; and a BS in natural resource management from Cornell University. She has served as a Peace Corps volunteer, political campaign manager, and associate with The Nature Conservancy, and has previous campus sustainability experience at the University of Vermont and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Rowse is a former board chair of the Agricultural Stewardship Association, a regional land trust that conserves farm and forest land. She, her husband, and their two daughters returned to the area and built a net-zero-energy home on the family farm. She is Skidmore’s director of sustainability and environmental initiatives.