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Staying: Why Artists Choose to Build Lives Here (and What It Takes) / Event
Start Date / Time: July 26, 2026 2:00 pm
End Date / Time: July 26, 2026 3:00 pm
Venue: Lumen Field Event Center, 800 Occidental Avenue South, Seattle, WA 98134
Price: Admission to Seattle Art Fair is required to attend this event
About the Event
As Artist Trust marks 40 years of supporting artists across Washington State, this conversation, hosted at Seattle Art Fair and moderated by Negarra A. Kudumu, brings together regional artists to reflect on what it means to build and sustain a creative life in the Pacific Northwest today.
In a time shaped by rising costs, and deep social and political uncertainty, many artists are faced with difficult questions about whether – and how- they can continue to live and work in the places that shape their practice. This panel centers artists in conversation with one another about the real conditions of staying: what makes it possible, what makes it difficult, and who gets to remain.
Grounded in lived experience rather than abstraction, the discussion will move beyond challenges alone to explore the networks of care, resourcefulness, and imagination that support artists in continuing to root their lives and work in Washington State. Together, panelists will consider what it takes not just to stay, but to build, contribute, and belong.
Note: Admission to Seattle Art Fair is required to attend this event. Artist Trust has a limited number of complimentary fair passes available. You will receive a link to download passes in your confirmation email.
About the Moderator:
Negarra A. Kudumu is an independent scholar and curator of contemporary art. Her curatorial interests focus on Afro-Surrealism, Black Abstraction, contemporary art from the Pacific Northwest, Africa, South Asia, and their respective diasporas. Negarra’s curatorial expertise includes a solo exhibition by Priscilla Dobler Dzul at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Chile, the 2023 25th Anniversary Neddy Award Exhibition in Seattle, a group exhibition at the 2021 ARCO Madrid art fair for the Lisbon-based art gallery MOVART, and four exhibitions, also in 2021, during her tenure as curator at the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle (CoCA).
In 2017 and 2018, Negarra curated a series of online exhibitions featuring emerging and established artists based in the United States, Canada, and The Netherlands titled, Curatorial Lab. Negarra’s writing has been published in notable volumes such as Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940 (Delmonico Books, 2024), Atlantica: Contemporary Art From Angola and Its Diaspora (Hangar Books, 2018) and Recent Histories: Contemporary African Photography and Video Art From the Walther Collection (Steidl/The Walther Collection, 2017). She has also contributed essays to gallery publications, exhibition catalogs, and art world magazines in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
About the Panelists
Hyunjeong Lim (b. 1987, Busan, South Korea) is a visual artist based in the Seattle area. She received her BFA in Painting from Seoul National University in 2010 and her MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London, in 2013.
Lim’s practice is shaped by her transnational background and sustained engagement with diverse cultural and natural environments. Having lived and worked across South Korea, Europe, and the United States, she draws from multiple cultural traditions and lived experiences. Through drawing and painting, Lim creates mindscapes that suggest a surreal perspective on the real world, exploring perception, memory, and emotional experience.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including recent presentations in Seoul, Busan, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. In 2025, she held her first solo exhibition in Seattle at 4Culture Gallery and continues to actively present her work in both the United States and South Korea
Amanda Manitach is a Seattle-based artist and writer whose work explores the power and plasticity of language through large-scale drawings, installations, and text-based works across mediums. Blurring the boundaries between word and image, her practice channels desire, endurance, and resistance in intricate, hand-rendered compositions. Over the past two decades, she has exhibited widely across the Pacific Northwest, including the Frye Art Museum, Bellevue Arts Museum, and Tacoma Art Museum. She is represented by Winston Wächter Fine Art in Seattle and New York.
Beyond the studio, Manitach has worked extensively in arts journalism and print publishing, serving as Visual Arts Editor at City Arts Magazine (2012-2018) and Editor of Public Display.Art (2024-2025). She has co-founded and contributed to several artist-run spaces, including The Factory on Capitol Hill (with Timothy Rysdyke) and TMRW Party (with DK Pan). Her curatorial work spans both DIY and institutional contexts, including three years as Curator of Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery (2013–2015). Following a four-month artist residency at Recology King County in 2023, Manitach joined the organization as Manager of its Artist in Residence program. Her writing can be found in publications including Hyperallergic, Seattle Magazine, and The Stranger.
Mary Ann Peters is an artist whose combined studio work, installations, public art projects and arts activism have made noted contributions to the Northwest and nationally. She lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Her awards include University of Washington Artist Images Award (2024) the McLaughlin Foundation Fellowship at the Headlands Center for the Arts (2022), the Artist Trust Visual Art Fellowship (2020), the Camargo Fellowship in Cassis, France (2017), the BAR residency in Beirut, Lebanon (2016), the Stranger Genius Award in Visual Art (2015), the Art Matters Foundation research grant (2013), the MacDowell Colony Pollock/Krasner Fellowship (2011), the Civita Institute Fellowship (2004) and the Behnke Foundation Neddy Award in Painting (2000).
Timothy White Eagle is a mixed-race artist of indigenous and European heritage. His art practice rises from a decades-long exploration of traditional ritual and embodiment practice. He crafts experiences, spaces, and objects designed to heal. His preferred mediums include objects, photography, performance, and installed space. His work has been presented on three continents. His most recent performance, The Indigo Room, premiered in NYC and Seattle, then was presented in the Public Theater’s UtR festival and is currently touring nationally.
He won the Western Artist Alliance/Advancing Indigenous Performance Launch Pad award in 2019. He Has done art residencies at On the Boards, TownHall, PICA, Guild Hall and La Mama Etc NYC. He has received grant support from the Seattle Office of Arts, 4 Culture, the Public Theater and 2023 a MAP Fund award for the creation of his upcoming work “Indian School” Timothy collaborated with and toured internationally with MacArthur Genius Taylor Mac on his Pulitzer Prize finalist “A 24 Decade History…” and “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce.
About Artist Trust
Artist Trust is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and encourage artists working in all disciplines to enrich community life throughout Washington State. Since its founding in 1986, Artist Trust has invested over $15 million in individual artists through grant programs and provides a comprehensive suite of professional development training and resources to help artists achieve their career goals. Learn more at artisttrust.org.
Have Questions?
Email Program Coordinator, Naomi Day.
Registration Ends July 26, 2026 10:00 am
Artist PanelSeattle Art Fair
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Image: Peggy Piacenza, 2024 Fellowship Recipient