IGOR PASTERNAK, MFA
b. Odessa, Ukraine 1967
Artist and educator specializing in participatory multimedia art, artist-community collaborations, and multidisciplinary synergies in humanities, engineering, and sciences
 
EDUCATION
--American University, Washington DC: MFA, Studio Art, 2009
--University of Alaska Fairbanks, BFA, Painting, 2006
 
APPOINTMENTS
Current
Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks:
--Department of Art (since 2009)
--Institute of Northern Engineering (since 2011)
--Department of Anthropology (since 2015)
--Ethnobotany Program (since 2015)
Previous
--Katzen Museum, Washington DC, Gallery Assistant, 2007-2008
--Fairbanks Arts Association, Gallery Assistant, 2005-2007
--University of Alaska Museum of the North, Archaeology Collections Assistant specializing in creating artifact replicas for exhibits and research 2000-2006
 
EXHIBITIONS
-- Feathers and Fingertips, a Fly Tyer Art Show
Artist-led community collaboration and participatory installation
Fairbanks Arts Association, May 2018
--Aging with Change, Food Arts in the Bering Strait
Artist-led community collaboration and participatory installation
Alaska Festival of Native Arts, March 2018
--Directions in Contemporary Video Art
Curator, University of Alaska Fine Arts Gallery, March 2014
--Yes We Can
Artist-led community collaboration and participatory exhibition
International Gallery of Contemporary Art, Anchorage, October 2014
--Scholarship, Keller Architecture + Allied Arts,
Artist-led community collaboration and participatory installation
Fairbanks, June 2012
--Values for a Troubled Economy
Solo show, participatory installation
Annex Gallery, Fairbanks, November 2011
--Means over Ends,
Solo show, participatory installation, video art, multi-media
Anchorage Museum of History and Art, October-November 2011
--Freethinker Kitchen
Collaborative visual ethnography with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak
Annex Gallery, May 2010
--Academy Invitational,
Group Show, Connor Contemporary, Washington DC, August 2009
--Curator’s Incubator
Group Show, Maryland Art Place, September 2009
--Nine
Group Show, American University Museum, Washington DC, May 2008
--Peace Now!
Warehouse Gallery, Washington DC, Feb 22–April 6, 2008
 
REFEREED PUBLICATIONS
-- Ethnomycology
Yamin-Pasternak, S. and I. Pasternak
International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
Wiley Blackwell 2018
-- A Cup of Tundra: Ethnography of Thirst and Water in the Bering Strait
Yamin-Pasternak, S., Schweitzer, P., Pasternak, I., Kliskey, A. and L. Alessa
Meanings and Values of Water in Russian Culture, Jane Coslow and Arja Rosenholm, eds.
Routledge 2017
-- The Rotten Renaissance in the Bering Strait: Loving Loathing and Washing the Smell of Foods with a (Re)Acquired Taste
Yamin-Pasternak, S., Kliskey, A., Alessa, L., Pasternak, I. and P. Schweitzer
Current Anthropology 55(5):619-645
 
SELECT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
--The Hip and Healthy Chaga Saga, from Siberian Foragers to Global Markets, Alaska Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Fairbanks, AK, 2017
-- Ecology and Aesthetics as Part of “Recipe,” (with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak) International Society for Ethnobiology Congress, Kampala, Uganda, 2016
--Our Sockeye Pilgrimage: Dip-netting for Salmon in Kenai, Alaska (with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak), Association of American Geographers, Chicago IL, 2015
--The Aesthetics of “Slow” and “Fast” in Home Canning (with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak), American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 2015
--Full Jar, Full Mind, Full Heart, and Full House: Phenomenology of Pickling Mushrooms in cultures of Eastern Europe, Russian Far East, and Alaska (with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak), International Congress for Ethnobiology, Bumthang, Bhutan, 2014 
--Thinking with Relational Aesthetics, an Experiential Fusion of Art and Anthropology, (with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak), Alaska Anthropological Association, 2014 
-- Where is the beauty? An Artist-Anthropologist-Community Collaboration to Investigate Aesthetics of Foodways and Built Environments of an Emerging ex-Soviet Settlement in Delta Junction, Alaska (with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak), American Anthropological Association 2013, Washington DC, 2013.
-- Artist and Anthropologist at the Crossings of Portraiture, Politics, and Aesthetics: Methods and Products of a Collaborative Experience, American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA
--In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Customary and Traditional: Ethics and Aesthetics of Ice Fishing in Interior Alaska, Association of American Geographers, New York, NY, 2011
 
TEACHING, University of Alaska Fairbanks semester-long and summer courses
--Beginning Paintings
--Beginning Drawing
--Intermediate Drawing
--Color and Design
--Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Painting, stacked summer course
--Explorations in Art
--Anthropology of Art (team-taught with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak)
--Advanced Independent Study in Art (10 semester-long courses)
-- Ethnomycology (team taught with Sveta Yamin-Pasternak)
-- Eskimo Art
 
COMPETITIVE GRANTS FOR RESEARCH AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT  
--Food Security and Lactic Bacteria Use in Alaska and the Bering Strait Region (co-investigator)
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Sciences Program, Standard Grant 2015-ongoing
--Collaborative Research: Arctic Horizons, Arctic Social Science in the High North (co-investigator)
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Sciences Program 2015-2018
--Cultural Adaptation of the Delta Russian Immigrants in Alaska (co-investigator)
National Science Foundation Arctic Social Sciences Program, 2011-2015
-- Video Exhibitions in Research and Pedagogy
University of Alaska Technology Advisory Board 2013
--Visual Research Exploration of Tourism in Ancient Sites of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize,
Mellon Fund Travel Grant 2009
 
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
--Katzen Art Center American University Museum, Washington DC: El Mundo de La Basura (Multi Media Installation)
--University of Alaska Museum of the North Fine Arts Collection, Fairbanks, Alaska: Aiming for Sainthood, Kotzebue Heart Attack (Paintings)
 
COMMUNITY AND SYNERGISTIC ACTIVITIES
- Ethnomycology presentations and workshops, numerous invited and volunteered events, most delivered on annual and/or returning basis, with the following hosting organizations: Friends of the Refuge Program, Galena, Alaska; Fairbanks Folk School; John Trigg Ester Library; Effie Kokrine Charter School; Fort Wainwright Army Base; Mendocino Coast Annual Foray; Mycological Association of Washington DC; University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension, multiple campuses and communities
- Art and dance nights, numerous DJ and multimedia art experiences delivered at my open studio shows, always free and open to the public, and at events organized by various student and community groups
- Art lectures and workshops, volunteer organized or delivered at the request of local entities and organizations, in schools and community centers in rural Alaska and Russian Far East, and (2007-2009) Washington DC Community of Hope Program
 
MFA ADVISORS
Luis Silva, Tim Doud, Zoe Charlton, Andy Holtin