Stillhouse Junkies is a one-of-a-kind creative project born out of the collective passions of three individuals with very different musical backgrounds. With chops and stylistic leanings ranging from classical to West African, blues, bluegrass, and swing, Fred Kosak, Alissa Wolf, and Cody Tinnin came together around a shared goal of bringing sounds and grooves to their fans that fall outside of easy genre distinctions. With all three band members trading lead vocal, songwriting, and arranging duties, Stillhouse Junkies paint with a rich tonal palette that pays homage to their musical heroes while forging a unique artistic path. Stillhouse Junkies are proud to be winners of the 2021 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year award, 2018 and 2019 Telluride Band Contest finalists (3rd & 2nd place) Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival Showcase Artists, and Showcase Artists at both the 2020 & 2021 IBMA World of Bluegrass.

The Durango, Colorado-based bluegrass band is spending their Green Box residency focusing on composing material, writing arrangements and conducting rigorous daily rehearsals to prepare for their next album. They will also be engaging with music students across the community, including Manitou Springs School District 14.

Amir Amiri dwells at the centre of a unique musical universe where ancient inspiration, dazzling virtuosity, and bold creativity meet. Surrounding himself with outstanding collaborators from the worlds of jazz, classical and world music, Amiri fearlessly transcends genres and borders, exquisitely transporting his ancient instrument into the musical conversations of our time.  Born in Tehran, Iran, Amiri is a master of the santur, a 72-string instrument dating from approximately 500 BCE.  Since arriving in Canada in 1996, Amiri has created numerous groundbreaking ensembles including the Amir Amiri Ensemble, inspired by the fluidity of musical influences in Iran and featuring the hypnotic presence of a Whirling Dervish; and Ensemble Kimya, a Montreal-Paris collaboration, combining early classical and contemporary music from Europe, the Middle East and India. Perséides, his duo with double bass player Jean Félix Mailloux, was featured at the National Arts Centre’s Sounds of Persia: Canada’s New Music Masters in 2018, where Amiri was Artistic Director.

Neena Pathak is a writer, editor, and audio producer whose work has been in podcasts like Invisibilia (NPR), This American Life, Another Round (BuzzFeed), The Daily and Still Processing (The New York Times). Her work has been honored by the Pulitzer Prize Board, Asian American Journalists Association, and Third Coast International Audio Festival.  She’s been itinerant for about a year now, and has been thinking a lot about community, practice, and death.

“After about a decade of working in audio journalism and documentary, I’m curious about other experimental and playful ways of telling stories in sound.  I’ve been thinking a lot about a question posed by an audio comrade, Jess Shane, who asked, “How do we make media that helps you be in, rather than escape from?”  To start, I want to interview community members while they engage in acts of drudgery.  At some point in the residency, I’d love to teach an audio storytelling seminar too. “

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kristina studied photojournalism at SF State but followed her love of rural communities, living and working in the Black Hills of western South Dakota for over a decade. She has documented news and communities for The New York Times, Mother Jones, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Harper’s and many others she’s incredibly grateful for. Early in her career, Kristina broke a 130-year run of men monopolizing the newsroom, becoming the first female staff photographer and later the first female photo editor at The Rapid City (S.D.)Journal. While Portland (Ore.) is now home, her favorite photos are made on the road across the Interior West. Kristina’s work as an independent artist focuses on the natural world, Alzheimer’s, grief, and mental health.

Guided by her introspective sense of place and belonging, Kristina is currently creating new art works around the idea of where our physical and non-physical worlds intertwine, exploring the bewildering experience of existing as a human. She plans to nurture her visual examination of themes around human consciousness reflected in nature through a unique, place-based exploration of the landscape. Kristina’s current practice is heavily influenced by the idea of memory and examining the state ofdreaming as a critical part of human life through observation of our shared natural environments. Thesupport of a month-long residency in such a place allows her to focus time and energy in a way that isnot easily supported in daily life as a self-employed freelance photojournalist

Janani Balasubramanian is an artist practicing across immersive media, conceptual art, and literary work and in long-term collaborations with scientists. Their work aims to invite deeper connection with nonhuman worlds and nurture social imagination for care, complexity, and play. Janani has received support from several prestigious funders and organizations, including the MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Sundance Institute, Pew Center, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, among others. Their work has been presented at dozens of venues internationally, including the San Francisco Exploratorium, Academy of Natural Sciences, Andy Warhol Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their many awarded residencies include The Public Theater, Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics at NYU, and Sundance Institute Theater Lab. They have been artist-in-residence in the brown dwarf astrophysics group at the American Museum of Natural History since 2017 and are a member of the Guild of Future Architects.

Janani will be in residence with Sultana Isham and they will spend their month at Green Box writing a dome Opera entitled Rouge Objects, an operatic, immersive, and inviting experience for dome cinema that brings the emerging science of brown dwarfs to audiences around the world. Through original footage, archival materials, and animation built with data from the new James Webb and Gaia space telescopes, and an original operatic score constructed from sonified data of nearby brown dwarfs, Rogue Objects welcomes us into the wonderful life of celestial objects that abound and sing in the dark. The residency will culminate with a workshop presentation of the opera.

Mk Smith Despres writes, teaches, and reads lots of books with their family in western Massachusetts. They have worked as an educator for over 15 years with kids and adults with disabilities, but also worked as a baker, made a magazine about food and farming, and spent exactly three days milking cows. Mk is the author of several new and forthcoming picture books including Night Song, illustrated by Hyewon Yum, and There’s That Sun Again, illustrated by Julie Benbassat.

Mk will use their time at Green Box to revise and develop a novel in verse for middle grade readers (ages 8-12) and to find and follow new picture book ideas. They are also excited to visit area elementary schools and work with students as part of their community engagement work in Green Mountain Falls.