Artist Statement
My creative practice foregrounds the relationship between the psychological influence of the acoustic and geographic environment, layered history, and personal narrative. I locate points of connection from sources such as mythology, philosophy, scientific theory, current events, and personal experience in my endeavor to understand how the characteristics and history of place influence my present lived reality. I record sound, still and moving image, document historical artifacts, paint, and write to create work spanning from installation and sound sculpture to digital video.
It was during an artist residency at Loring Park in 2019 that my interest the psychogeographical effects of the soundscape began. I sought to observe the sonic intersection of urban and wild environments, and how the rhythms and marks of each meld together into a unique soundscape. I wondered how much of this soundscape goes unheard or unnoticed as we walk around connected to headphones in our personal privatized sonic environments, or what is missed through our perceptual tendency to curate what is heard. What became most interesting was observing how people occupy or move through public spaces such as Loring Park, and how the soundscape of a public space becomes a reflection of current social habits. As part of the residency, I led a series of public sound walks to engage the community in active listening of the park.
This interest in psychogeographical soundscapes continues to evolve in my work. The short film Liberty Edition, which was commissioned for the 2021 Sound Scene Festival in Washington, D.C. describes my experience living in Loring Park early on in the pandemic and during the unrest following the murder of George Floyd, and the city’s militarized occupation by the National Guard. Akin to R. Murray Schaffer’s World Soundscape Project, which archived acoustical environments to record the effects of industrialization described in his book Soundscape: A Tuning of the World, I was documenting the acoustical changes in my sonic environment due to social unrest and isolation, and reflecting on how those changes affect those of us inhabiting that place. This domestically focused interest in sound led me to the abstraction of my personal soundscape with The Undead Sounds of Mundane Movement and Composition for Anxiety.
I continue to unpack personal narrative and history with two digital videos: The Lost Sunlow, an in-progress experimental portrayal of my experience of my father’s forty year pursuit to reach a lost lake; and Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea, an introspective tale of renewal after divorce, guided by Homer’s The Odyssey and my travels around Greece. In telling personal stories, I find myself increasingly drawn to layered narratives utilizing written, oral, visual, and aural storytelling techniques as a means to introduce connections to the world outside of myself as a form of orientation and awareness.
Bio
Kelsey Bosch is an interdisciplinary artist primarily working in media and installation. She received an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2016 and a BFA from the University of Minnesota, Department of Art in 2009. Kelsey currently teaches media art, graphic design, filmmaking, and film history at St. Olaf College, Augsburg University, Metro State University, and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Previously, she worked in the Moving Image department at the Walker Art Center. She has exhibited media and installation work at the Hirshhorn Museum, Weisman Art Museum, and Franconia Sculpture Park among other venues, and was an Art(ists) on the Verge 8 fellow.
EDUCATION
2016
MFA, Minneapolis College of Art and Design (Media Art/Sculpture)
2011
Certificate, College of Continuing Education, University of Minnesota (Business Writing)
2009
BFA, Department of Art, University of Minnesota (Painting/Media Art)
Solo Exhibitions
2023
Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea screening, Kokkino Limanaki Artist Residency, Rafina, Greece
2020
Loring Park Soundscape, Loring Park Community Building, Minneapolis, MN (cancelled due to COVID19)
2019
Loring Park Artist-in-Residence exhibition, Loring Park Community Building, Minneapolis, MN
Performances
2020
Sonic Salon, Minneapolis, MN
Nada, Cargo Studios, Minneapolis, MN (cancelled due to COVID19)
Group Exhibitions
2025
Look, Second Shift Studio, St. Paul, MN
Entwined, Kastro School, Sifnos, Greece
2024
11th International Documentary Festival of Ierapetra, Crete, Greece
Samples without Borders, Women of Noise (compilation album release fundraiser for Doctors without Borders)
MCAD Faculty Biennial, MCAD Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
2023
MCTC Faculty Exhibition, Minneapolis Community and Technical College Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2022
MCAD Faculty Biennial, MCAD Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
Trust _____, Sound Scene Festival, D.C. Listening Lounge and Smithsonian Hirshhorn, Smithsonian Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
All Souls Night: Pop Up Cinema, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, AK
Wits End, 811 Glenwood Ave, Minneapolis, MN
2021
Franconia 5 Minute Film Fest, Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN
Emerge, Sound Scene Festival, D.C. Listening Lounge and Smithsonian Hirshhorn, Washington, D.C.
Many Waters: A Minnesota Biennial, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN
2020
Distant Sounds: Collective Participatory Sound Artwork in the Time of COVID–19, Olio Projects
Unrequited Leisure, Nashville, TN (cancelled due to COVID19)
2019
MCAD MFA Alumni Exhibition, Minneapolis College of Art and Design MFA Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2018
MCAD Faculty Biennial, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
Vanishing Ice, Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN
Nes Alumni 10 Year Exhibition, Nes Artist Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland
2017
Art(ists) on the Verge 8, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
What I Think About, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
C.A.V.E. Film Festival, Bryant Lake Bowl Theater, Minneapolis, MN
2016
Reverb, TEDxMinneapolis, MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis, MN
Chronos, Cellular Cinema 16, Bryant Lake Bowl, Minneapolis, MN
Movies at WAM, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
MCAD MFA Thesis, MCAD MFA Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
Soo VAC + MCAD MFA: An Exhibition in Honor of Suzy Greenberg, Soo Visual Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN
The River: Memory and Metaphor on the Mississippi, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Borderlines, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
Art Shanty Projects, White Bear Lake, MN
2015
Waabizipinikaan-Ziibi (WZFR) Screening at Lily Spring Farms, Sommerset, WI
Meeting Waters, Whittier Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
Sound/Fun/Fury, Northern Spark Festival, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
Hallways, Casket Art Building, Minneapolis, MN
One Two Three, Emeritus Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
2014
Untitled 11, Soo Visual Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN
Chrysalis Stage, Whittier Gallery, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN
2013
Regis 10th Anniversary—current staff, Regis West Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Nes Open Studio, Skagaströnd, Iceland
Minnesota Grown, Sinclair Gallery, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA
Now What Now, 801 Gallery Boiler Room, Minneapolis, MN
2012
(Very) Recent Work, NYCAMS, New York, NY
Wanderlust, Quarter Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
2011
RESOURCE • RETURN • RECYCLE, Wilson Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Fear Itself, Altered Esthetics, Minneapolis, MN
Billboard Art Project, Duluth, MN and Chicago, IL
2010
Foot in the Door 4, Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program (MAEP), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
5th Annual Expressions of the Feminine Psyche, Van Brabson Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2009
Tabula Rasa, Form+Content Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
4th Annual Expressions of the Feminine Psyche, Van Brabson Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
BFA Show, Quarter Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Awards and Grants
Faculty Professional Development Grant, Community Film Series, Metro State University, St. Paul, MN––2025
Faculty Professional Development Grant, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN––2021
Commission, Vanishing Ice, Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN—2018
Fellowship, Artist on the Verge 8, Northern Lights MN, Minneapolis, MN—2017
Commission, Art Shanty Projects, White Bear Lake, MN—2016
MFA Trustees Scholarship, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN— 2014-2016
Planning and Research Grant, Forecast Public Art, Saint Paul, MN—2010
Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) Scholarship, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN—2009
Residencies
Kokkino Limanaki Artist Residency, Rafina, Greece–2023
Loring Park Artist-in-Residence, Minneapolis, MN–2019
Waabizipinikaan-Ziibi (WZFR), Sommerset, WI—2015
Nes Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland—2013
Publications
Walker Reader Author Page
Conversation on “पौर्णिमा : Gazing Into The Full Moon Night” by Roshan Ganu at SooVAC, Art Sprawl, edited by Ellen Mueller–2022
Skagaströnd Review (work printed in publication), Nes Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland—2016
Public Art Review (work reviewed in “Art Shanties on Ice,” Issue 54), Forecast Public Art, Minneapolis, MN—2016
Teaching
Visiting Assistant Professor (Foundation New Media, Digital Filmmaking, Graphic Design), St. Olaf College–Fall 2020-present
Adjunct Faculty (Film Production), Augsburg University–Fall 2024-present
Adjunct Faculty (Media I and Intro to Filmmaking), Minneapolis College of Art and Design–Fall 2018-present
Community Faculty (Film Studies, Film Production, Graphic Design), Metro State University–Fall 2024-2025
Faculty (Cinema History), Minneapolis Community and Technical College–2023
Visiting Faculty (Narrative Digital Filmmaking), St. Cloud State University, Fall 2022
Curation
Community Film Night Series, Metro State University, St. Paul, MN––Spring 2025
Teaching to Transgress, Metro State University, St. Paul, MN––Fall 2025
Wonder Women Fashion Show, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN—2015
Red Barn Film Fest, Glenwood City, WI—2014
Regis 10th Anniversary, Current Staff, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN—2013
Tales from the North, Quarter Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN—2013
Kelsey Bosch 