Thank You!
We are so grateful for your support during Missoula Gives. To show our appreciation, we’ve put together this Digital Thank-You Basket—a collection of local favorites, stories of impact, and a few surprises just for you. Please, dive in and enjoy!
Scarabic Serenades
Scarabic Serenades chronicles two artists’ collaboration inspired by the mating songs and dances of the Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle. Part documentary, part art-film, this film braids together researchers from the Emlen Biology Lab at the University of Montana, music by composer Jessi Harvey and dance by choreographer Julynn Wildman into a story as captivating as the beetle itself.
This feature documentary came out of Wildman and Harvey’s experience as Open AIR Artists-in-Residence and was produced in collaboration with the University of Montana Emlen Evolutionary Biology Lab and Open AIR.
Permission to Slow Down
Terry Conrad, Flathead Lake, 2025
Open AIR’s slow art videos share real-time process from artists-in-residence across Montana. No performance, no explanation—just slow media rooted in craft, repetition, and time. These videos reflect a variety of art disciplines.
Ecology of Mourning
Lane Chapman, Open AIR Alumni, 2024
Enjoy a tour by the artist herself in this short video archive. Lane Chapman (Open AIR alum) offers a tour through her recent thesis show and highlights how her Open AIR residency informed ECOLOGY OF MOURNING. Lane Chapman was a 2024. artist-in-residence at Cottonwood Field Station in the Lower Salmon River Corridor, near Butte, MT - hosted by our site partner, The Clark Fork Coalition. During Lane's graduate studies, she spent a great deal of time working with another Open AIR site partner, the University of Montana's Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum. These places influenced Chapman greatly when making this body of work. Lane's show ECOLOGY OF MOURNING was on view at the Gallery of Arts in April of 2026.
Introducing our 2026-2027 Artists-In-Residence!
This year, we used our Missoula Gives campaign to reveal the 23 Artists-in-Residence who will be our residency partner sites starting this summer through spring of 2027!
Who are they? Click the link below to learn more. Also, follow us on social media or look for the next newsletter this coming week for additional details!
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