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 is a New Mexico-based artist and educator working in a variety of media, including 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, which brought community-based art into the Barelas neighborhood of Albuquerque. His work has also appeared at the Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe; the Paseo Festival in Taos; the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire; Artspace in New Haven, Connecticut; the Albuquerque Museum; and venues in Spain and Germany.

Olguin has taught at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and Florida SouthWestern State College. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Northern New Mexico College.

Tarah Rowse is an energy and sustainability professional who has worked across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors as a researcher, professor, and manager. Rowse 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 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 built a net-zero-energy home on the family farm. She is the Director of Sustainability and Environmental Initiatives at Skidmore College.