Ann Schnake

Ann Schnake (b.1955 Oakland CA, MFA CCA SF 2012) is a visual artist and ringleader of collaborative projects, building installations, sculptural work and performance as activation of objects, space, ideas, and people, all to express the glimmering strangeness of the world and to invite new flows of possibility for failing economic, social and ecologic systems. She often employs organic materials that implicates the body: wood, cloth, dirt, hair, clay, baby socks, pig intestine. Her current work is to both create collaborative dialogues and alternative art spaces and to carve new bodily parts as wooden chimeras, tools of questionable utility and poetic prosthetics. Before this she worked as a nurse for many years; the very practical labor of examining, palpating and stitching the body is her phantom limb. Her sculptural work has been exhibited at Salon Acme 11, Mexico City, Documenta13 Kassel, Germany, Berkeley Fine Arts Museum, Reynolds Museum, Santa Art Institute and many galleries in the Bay Area and internationally. She leads collective endeavors, working with dancers, cooks, healthcare workers and other artists to create art venues, performances and projects in public sites, tents and storefronts. Works include: lead artist at Dream Farm Commons, an experimental exhibition and social practice storefront in downtown Oakland CA (2018- present); lead artist MobileInTent, artists from the US, Mexico and Germany creating visual and performative works while pushing on borders from the permeable walls of a tent (2012-present);Odd Sunday Dinners, a series of curated meals and conversations in Oakland, Mexico, Slovenia, gallery to border crossing (2010- present): ArtsChange (1996-2014)leading a non- profit arts organization in Richmond, California creating site specific new works exhibitions and performance in a county clinic and other public venues as lead artist, producer, director, cook and social navigator for over 300 exhibitions and projects

Residency/Fellowship

Community of Practice 2025

Website

www.annschnake.com
www.dreamfarmcommons.com
www.mobileintent.org
Instagram- @DreamFarmCommons

Location

Berkeley, CA