Twin Cities artist gets $75K in seed money for a project rooted in plant life

Twin Cities dancer and visual artist Pramila Vasudevan is getting a $75,000 boost from the Joyce Foundation for an upcoming project with Public Art Saint Paul.

Of late, Vasudevan has been busy with plants, investigating what artists can learn from growing practices and plant cycles. They recently created a geodesic dome in their backyard as part of their explorations.

"I'm thinking about: How can I build a way to engage with plants and growing practices in the urban wild," Vasudevan said. "I'm really trying to create from a different impulse that I am not trained in.

"I'm an infant in all of this, but I feel like we're in a moment when we all have to just kind of get on board and try to move forward from wherever we are."

The plan is to move forward in community, with participants serving both as witnesses and contributors to a project called "Prairie/Concrete." It will be part of next summer's inaugural Triennial Art Festival being planned by Public Art Saint Paul, with workshops and participatory events taking place in three St. Paul parks.

With an open mind and body, the artist is looking at how art and performance can approach togetherness with other beings and growing things: "I want to collaborate with artists and gardeners and community members to develop this work."

Five artists of color — all based in the Great Lakes region — received this year's Joyce Awards. Vasudevan, who also won a $50,000 United States Artists fellowship in January and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2017, joins an honor roll of Joyce recipients that includes noted artists Nick Cave, Theaster Gates and Julie Mehretu, and fellow Minnesota dancemaker Aparna Ramaswamy.