Seattle-based performance artist and poet MIMI ALLIN uses walking as a way of investigating new places for her work. Mimi frequently walks 50-100 miles weekly, often as part of the “ritual of entering a project.” Starting each project with a question, Mimi invites the public into her work, knowing the parameters but not necessarily the outcome for each piece. Mimi shares the challenges of funding, documenting and scaling her performance work.

Artist, speech pathologist, lecturer and poet DIANA SYDER creates expressive landscapes and still life paintings from her studio in the Peak District of Derbyshire, England. Diana started her professional life as a speech pathologist and university lecturer, but always found space to write poetry, uniquely focused on themes of science and nature. After four books of poetry and numerous collaborations with composers, sculptors, dancers, artists, astronomers and engineers, Diana is now bringing similar energy to her evocative paintings.