Works Progress Studio is an artist-led LLC based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

Led by Collaborative Directors Colin Kloecker and Shanai Matteson, Works Progress engages an expansive network of artists, designers, organizers, researchers, advocates and other creative people to realize imaginative public art and design projects rooted in place and purpose.


Shanai Matteson

Shanai is a writer, artist and arts organizer who leads and supports collaborative public art and design projects. She's interested in work at the margins of established fields and practices, and believes that edges and intersections provide fertile ground for artists and designers to learn and create, with and in community.

In addition to her role as Collaborative Director of Works Progress Studio, Shanai writes about artists and engagement, produces and directs documentary films, and consults with a wide range of organizations. Shanai is the Artistic Director of Public Art Saint Paul's City Art Collaboratory, a fellowship program for artists and scientists working with and on the Mississippi River and other ecologically-focused public art and engagement projects. In 2013 Shanai was awarded a Bush Fellowship to pursue her artistic and environmental leadership work.

Shanai grew-up in a small town on the Mississippi River in Northern Minnesota, and studied creative writing at the Perpich Center for Arts Education before attending the University of Minnesota for Cultural Studies and History of Science. She spent the first 6 years of her professional career as a Public Program Curator at the Bell Museum of Natural History, where she fell in love with environmental science, systems thinking, and social ecology.

Colin Kloecker

Colin is an artist, designer and filmmaker who works at the intersection of civic engagement and public art-making. He loves projects that invite participation, inspire new connections, encourage self-reflection, and enable collaborative meaning-making. He believes we can create more resilient, playful, and supportive communities by daylighting and nourishing knowledge and creativity where it already exists.

Colin was a 2011 Fellow in the Creative Community Leadership Institute at Intermedia Arts, and was awarded a 2014 Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step grant to make a short film with employees of the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant in Saint Paul. Everyday he strives to see beautiful possibilities in the systems of the city and to make interventions and provocations in our collective civic imagination.

Colin grew-up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he studied visual art at Milwaukee High School for the Arts. He moved to Minneapolis in 2001 to attend the University of Minnesota's College of Design, where he received an undergraduate degree in architecture. After graduating, he worked for 5 years at Cermak Rhoades Architects, a small firm with a focus on affordable and supportive housing in the Twin Cities metropolitan region, one inspiration for his own decision to start a socially-focused studio business.


PARTNERS & COLLABORATORS

We’ve been fortunate to work with a wide range of partners and collaborators, from individual artists and designers, to arts non-profits, neighborhood groups, city governments, philanthropic foundations, educational institutions, and businesses.

A

Aaron Dysart

Adj Marshall

Adrienne Doyle

Alliance for Metropolitan Stability

Allison Herrera

Amanda Lovelee

Amoke Kubat

Andy Sturdevant

B

Bell Museum of Natural History

Ben Shardlow

Blue Star Contemporary (San Antonio, TX)

Brady Clark

Bush Foundation

C

Carrie Jennings

Center for the Humanities (University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI)

Charlotte Street Foundation (Kansas City, MO)

Cleveland Neighborhood Association

Coffee House Press

Common Field

Creative Enterprise Zone

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AK)

D

Daniel Dean

E

Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC)

F

Forecast Public Art

H

HECUA

Healing Place Collaborative

Husbands

I

Intermedia Arts

J

Janaki Ranpura

K

Katie Hargrave

Kulture Klub Collaborative

L

Landland

Luminary Center for the Arts (Saint Louis, MO)

M

McKnight Foundation

Metropolitan Council

Minneapolis Arts Commission

Minnesota Center for Neighborhood Organizing

Minnesota Historical Society

Mississippi National River & Recreation Area (National Park Service)

Mississippi River Fund

Molly Balcom Raleigh

mono

N

Nexus Community Partners

Northern Lights.mn

 

P

Padelford Riverboats

Phipps Center for the Arts (Hudson, WI)

Plains Art Museum (Fargo, ND)

Press Street (New Orleans, LA)

Public Art Saint Paul

R

Red76

River Life (University of Minnesota)

RO/LU

Roopali Phadke

S

Saint Anthony Park Community Council

Saint Paul Parks & Recreation

Saint Paul Public Libraries

Sarah Peters

Sarah Schultz

Sean Smuda

The Soap Factory

T

Timothy Foss

Troy Gallas

Twin Cities Public Television

W

Walker Art Center

Y

YouthLink

Z

Zoe Prinds-Flash