The Rural Arts Initiative, an educational outreach program, works to encourage and empower rural school students and their teachers to actively participate in learning through the arts. The Rural Art Initiative came about in direct response to feedback from educators and families working in rural areas. Major challenges such as inadequate funding for art education, few museums and great distances have not allowed the visual arts to flourish in rural areas as much as other forms of art such as music and theater, which accompanied early settlers as they moved west. 

Museum Visits

Two major exhibitions will be selected for the program. Throughout the school year, teachers and their students will visit the Museum to see and discuss exhibitions. Financial support for travel expenses is available for qualifying schools.

Tour Exhibitions

The Museum will organize touring exhibitions of art, relevant to the local communities, that are integrated into school curricula and that can withstand less-than-optimal conditions and handling. Each exhibition targets specific age groups within the K-12 spectrum but all class levels are encouraged to visit and participate in the exhibition. Each host organization must provided a secure facility and staff for the duration of the exhibition. Exhibition times vary depending on location.

The Museum will deliver and install the exhibition

As part of the program Museum staff will train docents on the exhibition and program. In addition, Museum staff will return to pack up the exhibition when it closes. There is never a cost to host organizations. Past exhibitions, Snow Country Prison, Self Portraits, Shelterbelts, Marking the Land, and Animals: Them and Us, have been installed in buildings such as bank basements, Masonic temples, empty store fronts, school gymnasiums, etc.

If you are interested in learning more about the Rural Arts Initiative or would like to book an exhibition call 701-777-4195.

CROSSROADS: AN EXPLORATION OF PLACE AND IDENTITY

NOW BOOKING

Crossroads brings together the work of diverse artists who each stand at the intersection of place, identity, and narrative. These artists—Stuart Klipper, Rena Effendi, Claire Van Vliet, Christopher W. Benson, David Opdyke, Barton Lidice Beneš, and others—are connected not by their medium or style, but by their exploration of the human experience through the landscapes they traverse, the people they encounter, and the stories they tell.

 At the heart of Crossroads is the exploration of place—both physical and metaphorical. For many of the artists in this exhibition, place is not merely a backdrop but an active participant in their work. Stuart Klipper’s photographs capture the stark beauty of remote landscapes, from the frozen expanses of Antarctica to the desolate stretches of the American Midwest. His work speaks to the profound connection between the environment and human identity, where the harshness of the land mirrors the resilience of those who inhabit it.

 Similarly, Christopher W. Benson’s paintings convey a deep sense of place through their meticulous attention to light and shape. His work invites viewers to consider how the physical environment shapes our experiences and memories, and how those memories, in turn, inform our sense of self. A resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico—a North American art center—Benson pulls the viewer into three framed windows, continuing a long-standing painting tradition where the artist looks out onto the world, offering an intimate perspective on the interplay between interior and exterior spaces.

 Rena Effendi’s photography adds a socio-political dimension to this exploration. Her images document the lives of people in post-Soviet states, capturing the impact of political upheaval and environmental degradation on communities and individuals. Effendi’s work reminds us that place is not only a site of beauty but also of struggle and survival. Her photographs serve as a powerful testament to the resilience of people who continue to find meaning and connection in places scarred by history.

 The concept of “crossroads” extends beyond physical geography to encompass the intersections of text and image, tradition and innovation. Claire Van Vliet’s artist books are a prime example of this interplay. As the founder of Janus Press, Van Vliet has spent decades creating works that blur the lines between literature and visual art. In her work Moeraki Boulders II, we see evidence of her love of the print. A pioneer of the vitreograph, Van Vliet’s ode to this serene beach scene leaves viewers to ponder what lies on the other side of the water.

 David Opdyke’s work also plays with the intersection of narrative and visual art, though with a more overt political edge. In pieces like Mothballed, Opdyke uses intricate illustrations and ironic juxtaposition to critique American consumerism and environmental policy. A series of American flags bulges behind a contained wall—perhaps in storage or inaccessible to the world. His work reflects the crossroads of personal and national identity, where the ideals of progress and prosperity collide with the realities of ecological degradation and political discord.

 Barton Lidice Beneš, known for his provocative use of materials, takes this theme of intersection to another level. His art, often composed of everyday objects transformed into powerful symbols, challenges societal norms and taboos. Beneš’s work stands at the crossroads of art and activism, using the personal and the familiar to address issues such as the AIDS epidemic and the commodification of art. Through his innovative use of craft, Beneš invites viewers to reconsider their preconceptions and to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.

 At the core of Crossroads is the human experience—the lives lived, the connections made, and the stories shared. Each artist in this exhibition brings a unique perspective to the human condition, whether through the lens of a camera, the stroke of a brush, or the plate of a print. They remind us that at every crossroads, there is a choice to be made, a path to be taken, and that these decisions shape not only our individual journeys but also the world we leave behind.

 The work of Rena Effendi, for instance, captures the resilience of people living in the aftermath of political and environmental disasters. Her photographs are not just portraits; they are narratives of survival, endurance, and hope. Effendi’s images remind us that at every crossroads, there is a story waiting to be told, and that these stories are often the most powerful when they emerge from the margins.

 As you move through Crossroads, we invite you to reflect on your own journeys—the places you’ve been, the people you’ve met, and the choices you’ve made along the way. In this way, Crossroads serves as a reminder that art is not just about the finished product; it is about the process—the journey of creation, the choices made at each intersection, and the stories that emerge from these choices. The artists in this exhibition have each taken their own unique paths, but they all arrive at a common destination: a place where art and life intersect, where the personal becomes universal, and where the crossroads of their experiences invite us to consider our own. The polarity between the works—hard edges meet soft, urban confronts rural—reflects the dynamic connections between artist and land, raising questions about the impressions they will leave behind.

ALEX WEBB AND REBECCA NORRIS WEBB: THE GREAT OPEN, PHOTOGRAPHS FROM NORTH DAKOTA

NOW BOOKING FOR THE 2024 – 25 SEASON

And what is empty turns its face to us/ and whispers:
“I am not empty, I am open”
—Tomas Tranströmer

This exhibition by creative partners Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb brings together two linked yet distinct photographic visions of North Dakota.

As a fellow Dakotan, Rebecca Norris Webb takes a poetic and intimate look at the natural world of North Dakota. Her work often explores those places where the natural world and one’s inner landscape meet, especially during times of change, upheaval, and shifting weathers—both meteorological and metaphysical. Her storytelling serves as a map for when one’s loss seems to have its own geography, most notedly with her book and NDMOA exhibition, My Dakota: An Elegy for My Brother Who Died Unexpectedly. Drawn to the great openness of the mixed grass prairie and the broken, surreal beauty of the South Dakota badlands while grieving for her brother, Norris Webb began photographing in the North Dakota badlands. The badlands, too, felt like a kind of geography of grief for Theodore Roosevelt as a young man, who lost his mother and wife on the same day—of this moment he wrote: the “light went out of my life.” During this devastating time, Roosevelt moved to the North Dakota badlands, which slowly kindled his lifelong love of the Western landscape, as well as ultimately transforming him into “the conservationist president,” who would end up protecting some 230 million acres of public land during his presidency. Following a similar path, Norris Webb photographed other North Dakota landscapes resonant with loss and memory, including the Lincoln Drive Park, once home to some 350 residences lost in the 1997 Red River flood in Grand Forks; and the Fort Totten Historical Site, once an Indian boarding school, which was part of a former U.S. program designed “to kill the Indian” in tens of thousands of Native American children through forced assimilation practices. As she continued traveling across the state in August 2022, Norris Webb was guided by North Dakota’s ever-shifting light and weathers: from the dark stormy skies over a luminous yellow canola field near Starkweather—to the Gumbo Lilies near Medora, which bloom at night from the crevices of the badlands, only during those summers with enough rainfall.

Meanwhile, Alex Webb, raised predominantly in New England, has been described as a “shadow sociologist” by writer Pico Iyer. The author of some 20 books—including Amazon, Istanbul, La Calle: Photographs from Mexico, and the collaborative book and NDMOA exhibition Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba with Rebecca Norris Webb—he has photographed in more than 50 countries and 200 cities around the world, sometimes commissioned by museums and other cultural institutions as well as such magazines as National Geographic,Geo, and The New York Times Magazine. Webb takes a more global and often urban approach to North Dakota. During two trips to the state in August 2019 and August 2022, he photographed in the parks, neighborhoods, and flea markets of the more populated cities and towns of the state, including Fargo, Grand Forks, Bismarck, and Williston. He also photographed at various festivals and other events across the state, including the Icelandic Festival in Mountain, the Spirit Lake Professional Bull Riders on the Spirit Lake Reservation, the Morton County Fair and Rodeo in New Salem, and the Twin Buttes Powwow south of the Missouri River on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Additionally, Webb photographed neighborhood celebrations, which include some of the most recent residents in North Dakota, a state, which over the past decade, has resettled over 4,000 refugees, and, for several years, its total refugees per capita was the highest in the nation.

In order to create a more multi-layered portrait of North Dakota, the creative couple have interwoven their work in this exhibition—powwows and sunflower fields, rodeos and buffalo herds, twilight street scenes and badlands nightscapes. The Great Open is their seventh collaboration, including projects about a country (Cuba), a city (Rochester, NY); a borough (Brooklyn); a town (Wellfleet, MA); and now a state (North Dakota).

The artists want to thank the North Dakota Museum of Art and the National Endowment for the Arts for their support in creating this body of work—with a special thanks to NDMOA Founding Director Laurel Reuter and NDMOA Director Matthew Wallace—as well as all the North Dakotans who invited them into their lives and their landscapes.

Exhibition Partner:

This program is supported by a grant from
the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibition Locations

Meadowlark Arts Council, Crosby
February 29 – March 12, 2024

The Viking Building, Fessenden
March 14 – March 28, 2024

Opera House, Ellendale
April 9 – April 25, 2024

International Peace Garden, Dunseith
May 15, 2024 – June 27, 2024

Spirit Room, Fargo
July 1 – July 30, 2024

Northwest Arts Center, Minot
August 9 – September 21, 2024

Cavalier County Courthouse, Langdon
September 24 – October 3, 2024