WHAT [(IS IT) ABOUT MY] MEMORY PROJECT

This evolving community memory project examines how sharing of memories connect us to our own past and to each other.  The installation includes symbolic Somas or neural bodies, each focused on a memory theme (family, homes, food, jokes, words ...).  Copper "dendrites" hold the Memory Cards, on which drawings, photographs and writings depict brief memories - humorous ones, meaningful ones, wispy threads of memory or clearly remembered ones. The installation forms a back drop to readings, performances, & workshops looking at and sharing memories from creative, community, therapeutic and scientific perspectives.

FREEDOM SERIES

In these works, I explore physical representations of energy released from constraint. ​

COMMUNITY GROVE

Four mixed-media sculptures – Peace, Comfort, Rest and Ease – form the Community Grove within the newly named Intertribal Community Park, located at Billings First Church in Billings, Montana. I designed this as an embracement, a protective space, much like the thickets that grow along the river, that form spaces for seeds to collect, for small animals and insects to build nests. A place for listening,, healing, justice, joy and an awakening to a world where we share our experiences and commonalities and develop a curiosity and respect for our differences. 
​

EAST HELENA
FOOD/CULTURE HUB

As part of an ArtPlace America Creative Placemaking Grant, I was hired as an artist facilitator to create community-engaged projects that would help East Helenans further develop a new identify after their history as a company town (ASARCO smelter) and EPA Superfund Site. Keeping in mind COVID social distancing restrictions, Krys Homes, Executive Director of The Myrna Loy Theater, Betsy Burns, East Helena EPA Director, Bri Shipman, my local creative partner and I developed two mural projects and other opportunities for residents to learn more about each other and the city and build on their resilience and strength. The East Helena Food/Culture Hub is a collaboration between the City of East Helena, The Myrna Loy, the East Helena School District, and the local office of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

FOR FREEDOMS
50 State Initiative Billings ​

was a  collaborative offering of community conversations, art and correlating events which will provide non-partisan forums for action and discussion of values, place, and patriotism as part of the national For Freedoms 50 States Initiative (see below) in advance of the November 2nd mid-term elections. ​

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art, Director: Sherri Cornett, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China, 2014
Woman + Body, Co-Director: Sherri Cornett, Seoul & Gwangju, South Korea, 2012

FLOW
​INTERACTIVE EXHIBITION AND COMMUNITY PROJECT

Flow was a socially-engaged project where the exhibition of art and installations set the framework and jumping off point for community conversations around water issues, rights and usage during multiple events.  Sherri Cornett, with  gallery director Dr. Leanne Gilbertson, created opportunities for community interaction, where the gallery was set up as a laboratory - a space for experimentation, dialogue and collaboration. With the exhibition and events, viewers, participants, artists, river users, and civic leaders were encouraged to think outside their own understanding and establish a more comprehensive and informed perspective about how water affects our lives and livelihoods. ​

GROTTOES SERIES

These mixed-media wall/video sculptures are shrines to aesthetic backdrops for conversations about water rights, conservation and access and the many ways water is essential to our lives and livelihoods, as reminders of water as common ground, common necessity. ​

GUTFREUND CORNETT ART

An independent curatorial partnership between Sherri Cornett and Karen Gutfreund that specializes in creating exhibitions ​on themes of “art as activism” to stimulate dialog, raise consciousness, build communities and encourage social change.  Exhibitions have included: "Beyond Borders: Stories of im/Migration",  "Social Justice: It Happens to One, It Happens to All", "What's Right, What's Left: Democracy in America" 

UNDOCUMENTED

featured internationally recognized artists MICHAEL TAKEO MAGRUDER and BENTLY SPANG. Each artist reflects on discourses of intolerance and belonging in the light of their family histories and current events, especially the crisis facing immigrants at the southern border of the United States.

 PUBLIC ART


​Community Grove
Dedicated October 12, 2010
Intertribal Community Park at Billings First Church
​
Thicket 
Installed: June 7, 2019
Downtown Billings Alliance Public Art/Sculpture Under the Skypoint Program

Unearthed
Installed: July 30, 2019
Corner Minnesota Avenue and 28th Street, Billings, MT

ANCESTRESSES & WISE WOMEN 
and
CONVERSATIONS AMONG WOMEN

​Sculptures symbolic of women who mentored me accompanied enclose a circle of women of various ages and backgrounds , each sharing her perspectives, making  connections,  increasing our collective wisdom and enjoying the art of conversation in a positive, supportive environment.

LENS-BASED ART

Textural explorations in video

CHRYSALIS SERIES

Symbolic, protective places into which to retreat, ask questions, seek answers and stay current with our personal truths.  ​

SEAFORM SERIES

Reflections of the give and take of the water, the interconnected webs of reef life and the enclosed completeness of my diving experiences.
STATEMENT
Picture
Photo by Kelvin Pinney
As an artist curator with a background in political science, advocacy and activism, my exhibitions, projects, art and correlating events investigate and frame dialogue around the grand narratives used to navigate the world and our relationships, asking individuals and communities to engage with each other, question, consider and act.