The Farmscapes to Forests: Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research Artists-in-Residence Program is entering its fifth year, featuring Kalamazoo-based visual artist Ellen VanderMyde as the 2026 Artist-in-Residence and the debut of the program’s first group exhibition showcasing the work of last year’s cohort of Michigan State University College of Arts & Letters artists.
Launched in 2022 and supported by the National Science Foundation to promote collaborations between art and science, the program offers artists working in any medium a one-week immersion during the summer at KBS, where they collaborate with scientists, students, and educators connected by a shared passion for observing and exploring the natural world.
For each Artist-in-Residence, they are given the opportunity to return to KBS throughout the summer, if desired. The program then culminates with a return visit and public exhibition when the artist-in-residence share their work and experience with the KBS community.
Five Years of Growth
The artist-in-residence program was founded by Gretel Van Wieren, Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at MSU, in collaboration with Elizabeth Schultheis, LTER Education and Outreach Coordinator, and Nameer Baker, KBS LTER Science Coordinator. The program, which began as a single annual residency, has grown into a cohort model that connects multiple artists with the scientific community at KBS each year.
“The past five years have been an amazing period of growth for the Farmscapes to Forests Artist-in-Residence program. What began as a pipe dream around a dinner table at a KBS LTER event has blossomed into a thriving program that has enriched both artistic and scientific communities and has helped illuminate how different ways of knowing about particular landscapes may mutually work to strengthen and sustain people’s relationship to the land.” – Dr. Gretel Van Wieren
That growth will be represented this year with the program’s first-ever group public exhibition, bringing together the three MSU College of Arts & Letters faculty artists who served as 2025 Artists-in-Residence:
- Liv Furman is an Assistant Professor in MSU’s Department of African American and African Studies and an Assistant Project Director of the Quilt Index’s Black Diaspora Quilt History Project at MSU. Furman’s primary mediums include multimedia and digital collage, ceramics, quilting, and the written and spoken word.
- Blaire Morseau is an Assistant Professor and 1855 Professor of Great Lakes Anishinaabe Knowledge, Spiritualities, and Cultural Practices in MSU’s Department of Religious Studies and an affiliate faculty in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. A citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Morseau is a beadwork artist.
- Mikayla Thompson is a poet with Cherokee Nation descent who graduated from MSU in December 2023 with a B.A. in Linguistics and a minor in Indigenous Studies from Michigan State University. She is a Professional Aide for the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program and the Beal Botanical Garden.
The exhibition is scheduled for July 17, 2026, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary.
“Having the opportunity this year to host a cohort of artists from diverse backgrounds and working in various mediums has shown how important it is to engage a plurality of artistic modes of engaging with long-term ecological research in order to broaden public awareness about shifting ecosystem dynamics,” Van Wieren said.
2026 Artist-in-Residence: Ellen VanderMyde
VanderMyde is a visual artist, muralist, and teaching artist. Her residency at KBS runs May 24-31, 2026.
Over the past 15 years, VanderMyde has built a career as a visual artist and shown her work regionally and nationally. A Kalamazoo Promise alum, she received her B.A. in Fine Art with a minor in Art History from the Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University. She has been awarded artist residencies with Stay Home Gallery and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. She also is a Kalamazoo Artistic Development Initiative (KADI) grant recipient.
“I’m very excited to be the KBS LTER Farmscapes to Forests Artist-in-Residence for 2026-2027,” VanderMyde said. “I’m looking forward to touring the station and meeting with scientists and students to learn about their research.”
During her time at KBS, VanderMyde will visit researchers in the field and participate in lab activities and observation to create a series of paintings featuring KBS scientists and students interacting with the natural world.
“My hope is that through the observation of fieldwork and one-on-one interviews, the paintings I create will provide a unique perspective into the relationships between environmental scientists, the land, and the nonhuman inhabitants they study,” she said. “By depicting people who have devoted their life’s work to understanding and protecting their local ecology, the work will illuminate how that connection and relationship can be fostered.”
This post has been adapted from the article “Humanizing the Science: W.K. Kellogg Biological Station Artist-in-Residence Program Marks Fifth Year”, originally written by Austin Curtis and Kim Popiolek and available from MSU CALS.