The Writing Residency

Minnesota Street Project is pleased to announce the Writing Residency Program at the 1240 Minnesota Street Studio building, and introduce its inaugural residents, Anton Stuebner and Katie Somera.

Minnesota Street Project’s newest quarterly artist-in-residence program, the Writing Residency, provides Bay Area writers with unique access to the Minnesota Street Studios program, facilities, resources and artist community. In return, the writers are invited to produce original content on topics of their choosing within the nebulous realm of art and cultural production. The goal of the Writing Residency is defined by the value derived from critical and unrestricted research and writing on all aspects of contemporary art, from conception to completion; art storage to art exhibition; interviews to observations; critical or curious.

For the first term, the Project selected two writers with complementary styles and divergent focuses, establishing the broad range of content the program hopes to encourage.

As a contributing writer to Art Practical, Anton Stuebner’s areas of focus have included queer representation, critical race, and visual cultures around bodies. During his residency at 1240, Stuebner will expand his graduate research on Felix Gonzales-Torres’ “candy spills.”  Stuebner states, “I want to eschew the personal context of Felix Gonzalez-Torres' candy spills -- at least initially -- and focus on their materiality: the sheen of the cellophane wrappers, the smell of the candies, the tactile experience of shaping and digging through a mound of plastic and cellophane and hardened sugars. I want to think about how cultural associations with "candy" -- as well as films and songs that reference candy -- affect how we encounter Gonzalez-Torres' candy spills. I want to consider these works expansively, inviting other artists to offer their own interpretations/responses/riffs/rebuttals to Gonzalez-Torres.”

A constant observer, Katie Somera’s writing centers around personal histories, as well as the stories found in the context of places and objects. From personal essays, short stories, and micro-stories (anything from a handful of sentences, to classified ad style writing), to her current work on her first novel, Somera’s focus is on daily urban activities, the people, places and inanimate objects that articulate space and place. Somera’s residency at the Studio building will explore ways to provide the public conceptual access to the private workspaces, public venues and artists themselves. “The plan is to create curiosity through stories about the Project’s multiple spaces, the studio building as an entity onto itself, as well as the internal artistic actions.” Somera will also have a box in a common area marked "inanimate objects (to write, or not to write about)," in which studio artists and visitors can leave inspirational items for her consideration.

Stuebner and Somera’s work will be posted on the Studio Program blog 1240minnesotastreet.com.