Pictured: Hermitage Fellow Raven Chacon at work. Photo by Neal Santos.

On May 23, visit the Hermitage Artist Retreat’s beachfront campus on Manasota Key for a truly special program. The Hermitage, a leading national arts incubator dedicated to the development of new work across all artistic disciplines from writing to sculpture to mixed media and everything in between, boasts an alumni of highly acclaimed artists. While at the Hermitage, these artists are allotted multi-week residencies to work on their craft–the only thing that the organization asks in return is that the Hermitage Fellows participate in free community programs dedicated to giving the public an inside look into their creative processes. 

Visualizing Culture is an hour-long program featuring three Hermitage alumni, all at the top of the game in their respective fields. Diana Al-Hadid, an internationally acclaimed visual artist whose work is currently on display at the Sarasota Art Museum along with nine other Hermitage artists, will speak about her work and career path alongside Raven Chacon, a Pulitzer-Prize winning composer, installation artist and performer and Candice Hopkins, who is a multidisciplinary artist and acclaimed visual curator. All three artists come from distinct cultural backgrounds and use their work to interrogate contemporary culture and ideologies. Al-Hadid is a Syrian-born, U.S.-based artist, Chacon hails from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation and Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation in Canada. 

“I think when you have some talented polymaths, if you will, these super multi-hyphenates, there’s often a synergy of having an experience and conversation about what it means to pull in all of these different fields and to be a true artist in a path that is not easily defined. There isn’t one of them who has had a very linear career path, they’ve all crossed forms,” says Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage. “All three also bring distinct cultural backgrounds and identities that I think are rather unique and enable them to share a common theme on talking about how their backgrounds and cultures actually infuse into their work.”

May 23, 6:30pm to 7:30pm, Hermitage Beach, 6660 Manasota Key Rd., Englewood, FL.

Pictured: Hermitage Fellow Raven Chacon at work. Photo by Neal Santos.