Image by Mollie Pulte

I am a multi-disciplinary artist, designer, educator, and maker. My practice explores coming together and publishing as an artistic practice—making public and making publics. It privileges tacit engagement to make physical the immaterial and bring forward what we know by heart.

Taking the form of activities that are between, and include people, events, and ideas, my projects are usually participatory and range in scale from intimate interpersonal situations to group collaborations.

I believe food to sit at the center of everything and that it has the potential to impact widespread change. As a result, food and its systems have found its way to many of my projects and is often at the nexus of my work.

My dining room is a ceramic studio and the foyer a publication studio and library; there is usually some type of tincture or fermentation happening on the kitchen counters and dried herbs from my balcony garden hanging amongst the pots and pans. For me there is no real separation between food, clay, cooking, making ceramics, my book shelves, hosting a dinner party, and having a studio that supports a creative practice.

Rooted in the principles and aesthetics of intuition, strategically put in place to foster imagination, comfort, and care, the ecology of my home is my creative practice. With this in mind, my most recent project is a residency program, In-residence Residency Living, (IRL). IRL is a social sculpture, an idea for creating through the art of living.

I have an insatiable curiosity and am a lifelong learner. I co-founded the Working Library a socially engaged artistic practice and residency program that supports creative projects dealing in themes of publication, archive, and collection. I currently pursuing an Alternative MFA in Food + Art with The Gramounce. I have completed an MFA in Art, Craft, and Design at Pacific Northwest College or the Arts + Oregon College of Art and Craft (2016), a Post Bac. in Graphic Design (2011) and a BA in Photography and Contemporary theory (2001) at Western Washington University.

Part educator, curator, and producer, I am currently the Director of Design Experience at Nike's Blue Ribbon Studio (BRS) — the center for engagement and development of Nike's Design community. BRS operates as a physical maker space and education lab, providing resources and programming for the company's 2500+ designers in the four key areas: creation, cultivation, connection, and celebration. We set out to inspire the future of Nike Design by informing creative direction, expanding capabilities, elevating craft, and connecting community.

let's connect: lauraoquin (@) gmail (dot) com