Halee Kirkwood’s debut poetry collection, To Think of a Match, is forthcoming with Curbstone Press in March 2027. They were a 2023–2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, an inaugural and returning Indigenous Nations Poets fellow, a Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant recipient, and a 2019 Loft Mentor Series Fellow. Kirkwood was the recipient of the 2022 James Welch Poetry Prize for Indigenous Poets, published with Poetry Northwest. Kirkwood is a direct descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.

During their residency, Kirkwood plans to study the plot and structure of historical fiction novels while considering the long and complex economic relationship between Great Lakes Native nations and France intertwined with the involvement of Native code talkers in the world wars. Kirkwood will also continue their work investigating the cultures, identities, and so-called “vice-zones” of port towns, feeling for similarities and differences between the towns of Provence and their hometown of Superior, Wisconsin.

Photo by Carla Rodriguez at Blkk Hand Photography.

Leslie Barlow is a visual artist, educator, and cultural worker from Minneapolis, MN. Barlow believes art and artmaking is both healing and liberatory, through the power of representation, witnessing and storytelling. Her life-sized oil paintings are inspired by community and personal experiences and often serve as monuments to community members and explorations into how race entangles the intimate sphere of love, family, and friendship. Barlow is a recipient of the 2025 and 2019 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowships, and the 2021–23 Jerome Hill Fellowship. In addition to her studio practice, Barlow is an assistant professor of drawing and painting at the University of Minnesota and supports emerging artists as a part of the Public Functionary team. Barlow is also the founder of ConFluence, a BIPOC arts and science fiction convention, and co-founder of Creatives After Curfew, a mural collective.

During her residency, Barlow looks forward to spending her time in cross-disciplinary exchange with the Camargo community while working on Us, Becoming, a project examining Black cosplay and fandom as a site of world-building, alchemy and embodiment, and collective imagination. She plans to engage with local fandom communities, attend regional multi-fandom events, and conduct archival research to inform an upcoming exhibition.