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, often a catalyst for new connections and understandings across disciplines. 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: A New Mexico-based artist and educator working in ceramics, adobe, sound, video, and electronic media. Drawing from his mixed Indigenous American and Spanish heritage, he uses traditional materials and hand processes alongside modern elements. He divides his time between the computer lab and the desert, aspiring to make and teach new media along with socially engaged art projects. He earned a BA in media arts and an MFA in electronic arts from the University of New Mexico. Olguin has worked with schools throughout the Southwest, engaging in earth works and electronic media. In 2019 he received the Fulcrum Grant, bringing community-based art into the Barelas neighborhood of Albuquerque. His work has appeared at Currents New Media Festival (Santa Fe), the Paseo Festival (Taos), the Hood Museum of Art (Hanover, NH), Artspace (New Haven, CT), the Albuquerque Museum, and venues in Spain and Germany. 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: 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 with a focus 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 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, and, with her husband and two daughters, built a net-zero-energy home on the family farm. She is the Director of Sustainability and Environmental Initiatives at Skidmore College.