2024 Fisheries Art + Science Fellow to Highlight Salmon Reintroduction

The Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design and NOAA Fisheries have selected accomplished environmental artist Nellie Geraghty for the fifth AICAD/NOAA Fisheries Art + Science Fellowship.

Geraghty's art draws from her experience as a farm hand and a commitment to environmental justice through education. Her work tells stories gathered from field research through intricate visual narratives. Using scientific illustration, printmaking, painting, 35mm film, and analog animation, she explores the realities of food production and human effects on the environment. Geraghty received her B.A. in Visual Art from SUNY Empire State and her M.F.A. in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design.

The Fellowshipgives the recent graduate a hands-on opportunity to apply her art and design education to highlight ecological and social concerns. She will address them by connecting communities around challenging resource issues. Nellie will complete a 6-week residency with NOAA Fisheries during summer 2024. She then will research, produce, and distribute her resulting creative work through February 2025

The 2024 Fellowship invites her to use art to help engage residents, landowners, water users, and others in the Columbia River Basin. It will support the tribally led reintroduction of salmon to their historical habitat in the Upper Columbia River, above Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams. The Biden-Harris Administration agreed last yearto support the Upper Columbia River Tribes in returning salmonto what was once some of their most productive habitat in the Columbia Basin.

That goal aligns with a national Equity and Environmental Justice Strategythat NOAA Fisheries adopted in 2023. The strategy seeks equal access for West Coast communities to the sustainable fisheries, safe seafood, and healthy ecosystems for which NOAA Fisheries strives.

The selection committee was comprised of artists and NOAA Fisheries professionals:

Dawn Keeneis the president of Studio Change, a company offering sustainability consulting services. Prior to Studio Change, Dawn served as president of Keene Design, Inc., an award-winning Atlanta-based firm specializing in graphic design for over a decade. Keene's previous affiliations have included the High-Performance Healthy Schools Committee for the United States Green Building Council Atlanta and serving as the membership chair and on the sustainability committee for the American Institute of Graphic Arts Atlanta.

Dr. Blane Bellerudhas worked as a fisheries biologist for more than 40 years and with NOAA since 2001. He has always been interested in art and has contributed illustrations to numerous NOAA publications and other products.

Hugh Pocockwas born in New Zealand and raised there and in the United States and England. His work seeks, as a location, the points of transaction between culture and natural phenomena. His sculptures, installations, and videos investigate the history and metaphor of the human relationship to natural resources, space, time, consumerism, art, and language.

Lalena Amiotteis the Regional Tribal Coordinator with NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region. She is a point of contact for tribes and NOAA on tribal matters and helps regional staff and leadership in strengthening their own tribal relationships. Amiotte is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. She serves as a professional member of the American Indians in Science & Engineering Society and enjoys working with tribal youth in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics programs.

Stephanie Littlebird Fogel is a Kalapuyan visual artist, professional writer, and curator. Drawing connections between our collective past and imminent future, Fogel mixes her own tribal traditions with contemporary materials and subject matter. She graduated from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland in 2015 and is a 2020 Caldera Artist in Residence, a 2019 Regional Arts and Culture Council project grant awardee, and a two-time Art + Sci Initiative recipient. She has collaborated with the Oregon Bee Project, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Postal Service. Stephanie was the 2020 AICAD/NOAA FIsheries Art+Science Fellow.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

AICAD/NOAA Fisheries Art and Science Fellowship

Community-Based Art Project, "Neighbors Along the Riverbed," Promotes Salmon Conservation

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