Individuals within a Network

A Network within a landscape

Works Progress is an artist-led public art & design studio based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We create artistic platforms for people to engage, connect, converse and create with/in their neighborhoods and communities, across creative and culture boundaries. We work collaboratively with other artists and organizations and produce our own public art projects and programs.

Colin Kloecker, Co-Director

Colin is an artist and designer working at the intersection of public engagement and civic design. Colin grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and studied architecture at the University of Minnesota. He’s been creating public art projects and programs for over five years. Colin is passionate about working collaboratively to make unique public spaces and experiences that delight, inform, or provoke. His favorite projects encourage thoughtfulness, unexpected questions, and conversations across creative and cultural boundaries. His goal is to make cities and communities more resilient - and more exciting!

Shanai Matteson, Co-Director

Shanai is an artist, writer, and cultural producer who enjoys leading collaborative, cross-disciplinary projects. Shanai’s academic background is in cultural studies and history of science at the University of Minnesota. She is originally from a small town in northern Aitkin County, Minnesota. Shanai began her career working in education and public programs at the Bell Museum of Natural History, where she also worked on several exhibit design teams. Shanai is passionate about public art and design projects at the intersection of disciplines. She loves science and systems thinking.

Collaborators

Andy Sturdevant

Trained as a painter at a fine public university in the Upper South, Andy quickly learned that while he loved making art, solitary studio practice was not for him. Since moving to Minneapolis in 2005, he has worked collaboratively on visual art, curating, performance and writing projects that emphasize community, history and interactivity. His first job was working the drop-off window at a suburban dry cleaners in Kentucky. Andy co-founded and is the Creative Director/Host of Salon Saloon.

Ben Shardlow

It's easy to see the connections between Ben's interests and his family. Raised by an urban planner and an English teacher, he's interested in physical and social aspects of community, and how we communicate with one another in the communities we choose. His work is informed by professional experience in social science research and real estate development. He lives in Saint Paul with his wife Kristin and their Blue Tick Coonhound Harper. Ben co-founded Works Progress and Give & Take.

Brady Clark

Brady loves a good problem. As an artist he creates them, as a designer he solves them, and as a consultant he helps people articulate and find solutions to theirs. He spends most of his time thinking about how to improve the quality of life for people through their interactions with objects and one another. Brady is a graduate of the Evergreen State College, the inventor of the Speed Vest and a regular participant in Art Shanty Projects. He got his start last millennium working as a designer at Wired Magazine. He's currently working on the real-world user interface for Give & Take (he's designing nifty packaging for our name tags).

Amanda Lovelee

Amanda is a visual artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is interested in how people connect, and the spaces in which they do so within contemporary society. Her work, mainly video and photography, weaves together data, stories and personal experience to create non-linear narratives about the fragility of human relationships. Her recent work has explored a myriad of topics: family history, the lives of beekeepers and ice fishermen, strangers’ love stories and the sociology of square dancing. She has been collaborating with Works Progress on video narratives that help to show the neighborhoods along the central corridor and hopes to continue this collaboration in many different directions.

Zoe Prinds-Flash

Zoe is Works Progress’ photographer-in-residence. Zoe is based in Minneapolis and is studying Photography and Art History at the Universities of Minnesota. When not photographing art events and projects with Works Progress, Zoe can be found photographing for online blogs, local bands, as well as exploring conceptual issues around identity, midwestern-ness, and memory through her personal work. She likes Jim Jarmusch movies, dry hops, making mix cd's, the band Califone, and anything salty and sweet mixed together. You can find Zoe trying to mask her height, but probably getting in your way (sorry!) at many Works Progress events and projects.

Troy Gallas

Growing up in Minneapolis, MN among a family of artists and performers, Troy has always valued being part of a creative community. With a passion for collaboration that carries through in all his work, he aims to create spaces and opportunities for bringing people together in unique and meaningful ways. With his travel experience abroad and training as an architect, he brings cultural enthusiasm, quality, and focus to all details of his work. Troy co-founded Works Progress, Solutions Twin Cities, and Give & Take

Interns

Brian Hurlow, Design Intern

Brian is Works Progress' first design intern. He is finishing a degree in political science at Macalester College in St. Paul with a focus in new media theory and practice. He has a passion for clean, efficient and intelligent coding and functional design. When he's not meticulously pushing pixels he can be found taking photos of his best friends, recording music with his band Carroll or building desks out of wood. He loves kale, candles, coffee and pulling up the blinds in the early morning. He deeply enjoys working on creative projects with Works Progress and looks forward to exciting blends between the physical and the digital.