HAWONA SULLIVAN JANZEN

Hawona Sullivan Janzen Hawona Sullivan Janzen is a St. Paul, Minnesota-based multidisciplinary artist and curator who believes that art is the only thing that can save us from ourselves. Born and mostly raised on her family’s farm just outside Shreveport, Louisiana, and trained as a historian and poet, from childhood, much of her work is rooted in text and storytelling traditions with a distinctive focus on grief, loss, love, and hope. 

Her practice includes: poetry, playwriting, photography, music composition, and live performance. Her work has been featured on National Public Radio,  in publications by Sister Black Press,   Coffee House Press, and developed into a jazz opera  at the Soap Factory Gallery. She is a recipient of several awards including: the Jerome Foundation Naked Stages Performance Art Fellowship, City of Lanesboro Artist-in-Residence,  McKnight Foundation Artist Neighborhood Partnership grant,  and a Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Community Partnership grant.  She is currently an MFA candidate in the University of Minnesota’s Interdisciplinary Art and Social Practice Program where she is a  recipient of the Fink Family Fellowship and the Gus Gustafson Memorial Photography Fellowship.   She is currently at work on “Love Letters for the Midway,” a crowd-sourced public art project  featuring photographs and poetry about life in the Hamline-Midway Neighborhood of Saint Paul.