ECO ResidenT
2022 Resident
Tom Bierlein
Tom Bierlein is Minneapolis based sculptor and gardener who creates spaces to experience rest, connection, and reflection between people and the natural environment. These spaces, simultaneously sculpture, gardens, and architecture, offer viewers a place to spend prolonged engagement with the environment they are situated within.
About the Eco residency
Our location is blessed with a long side-yard, a parkway, several raised beds, and a devoted native prairie garden. Outside of what our property line demarcates, our space is also part of a residential ecosystem, near the Des Plaines River riparian zone. To help us and our neighbors better understand, caretake, and cultivate these natural spaces, our Eco Residents or Eco-Philosophers-in-Residence are invited to guide us into a more informed, intimate stewardship of our land throughout a full calendar year.
Our organization is fascinated with natural systems and often employs biomimetic design to contextualize and achieve our institutional goals. In partnership with our Eco Resident, our hope is to be guided into a deeper understanding of our natural systems and help cultivate healthy, sustainable communities.
Previous ECO RESIDENT
2021 Resident
Tony Foley
Tony Foley is a writer, organizer, archivist, and amateur naturalist building a platform and course of study titled Midwest Pro-Future, which will begin this summer as a series of readings, photo logs, essays, lectures, conversations, journals and artworks investigating the history and everyday magic of the Midwest within the context of and held in communion with, the ecological reality of climate collapse: and through honest conversation and communal action, explore our shared grief— and in doing so, traverse newfound paths of living courageously, consciously, and with gratitude within the precarious natural wonder of the Midwest.