Three Exciting Artists in Residence Bring their Vision to EveryLibrary in 2019

Three Exciting Artists in Residence Bring their Vision to EveryLibrary in 2019 VersAnnette Blackman-Bosia, Brandon Monokian, and Rachal Duggan will create original art and performance reflecting on libraries, politics, and community life for this unique Artist in Residence program.

EveryLibrary will host three exciting visual and performance artists for our 2019 Artist in Residence program. We are happy to welcome VersAnnette Blackman, Brandon Monokian, and Rachal Duggan for our third biannual Artist in Residence program. From September through early November, these artists will explore the intersection of politics and libraries through their own creative lenses. EveryLibrary will host in-person and virtual exhibits, performances, and showcases to engage the library community and our network of Americans who support librarians in this country.

Each artist will be showcased on EveryLibrary’s social media and web platforms as well as hosting a real-world component or performance:

VersAnnette Blackman-Bosia is a visual artist, author, poet, and facilitator. She is the founder of and artist behind Soul Revival Healing Arts and has served as a trauma-informed facilitator teaching art in domestic violence shelters and Chicago high schools. VersAnnette will bring her intuitive painting approach to a series of large paintings, culminating with an exhibition opening on October 19th in the Chicagoland area. Connect with her on Instagram @soulrevivalhealingarts

Brandon Monokian is an actor, director, and writer for stage and film. His credits include Happy Yummy Chicken, Revolutionary Readings, and he co-created the Page to Stage series at the Princeton Public Library. For his residency with EveryLibrary, Brandon has written a new play titled amethyst. that will premiere as a reading at the 2019 Philly Fringe Festival in September. Connect with him on Twitter @bmakestheatre and Instagram @brandonmonokian.

Rachal Duggan is an illustrator, instructor, and live drawer for publications and organizations including NYLON Magazine, The Guardian, and the Pitchfork Review. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Bubbler at Madison (WI) Public Library. For her residency, she will be working on a series of crowd-sourced “interesting facts” about libraries, highlighting one library in each state for a total of fifty drawings throughout the AIR. Connect with her on Instagram @radillustrates

While each of our featured Artists brings their skills and creativity to this project, we are fortunate to have Erinn Batykefer and Laura Damon-Moore join us as the Producers of the 2019 EveryLibrary AIR program. As Producers, Laura and Erinn have invited each artist to consider and interpret the role, nature, and impact – realized or nascent – of librarians and library services in our country. From 2011 – 2017 their groundbreaking Library as Incubator Project brought new attention to arts programming in libraries, especially by focusing on the innovations that come from artists and creators interacting with the public.  Their new book Incubating Creativity at Your Library will be released by ALA Editions in 2019.

EveryLibrary’s Artist in Residence program will run during September, October, and early November 2019. This time period represents the traditional “Labor Day to Election Day” campaign season but, being an “off-cycle” year, allows us to reflect back and look forward to national, state, and local political campaigns to come. As a national political action committee for libraries, we believe that it is important to ask questions about the role of libraries as taxpayer-supported institutions, and the nature of librarians as both public servants and transformational change agents. For more on our Artists and Producers, visit http://everylibrary.org/artist-residence-program/.