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artist bio
nicholas b jacobsen is a seventh-generation Utah-Mormon, trans-nonbinary settler raised in Nuwu homelands. As a creative historian, culture critic, & visual artist, their work addresses their personal and ancestral connections to the U.S. & Mormon settler-colonial-imperialist project. Through this, they work to disassimilate from the myths of white-supremacy and settler-innocence central to Mormon & U.S. cultures.
jacobsen completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico & a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from Southern Utah University. They’ve won many awards & have been published, podcasted, exhibited, and collected throughout the U.S. You can see more of their work at nicholasbjacobsen.com, unsettlingmormonism.com and @Unsettling_Mormonism on Instagram.
jacobsen completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico & a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from Southern Utah University. They’ve won many awards & have been published, podcasted, exhibited, and collected throughout the U.S. You can see more of their work at nicholasbjacobsen.com, unsettlingmormonism.com and @Unsettling_Mormonism on Instagram.
artist statement
I am an artist and researcher dedicated to unsettling settler-coloniality, being a witness to Whiteness, and mending the human/nature divide in dominant U.S. culture. This work emerges as an entanglement of installation, performance, video, ceramics, sculpture, text, and digital collage. My research is slow, embodied, and place-based, emphasizing the time and attention it takes to develop a lasting, visceral understanding of something. Through my work I want others to come away with an open, ongoing, multisensorial curiosity about themselves and the multiplicitous world that are submerged within.
In the mid-1800's, after repeatedly being forced out of their homes in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, my ancestors migrated across the Great Plains into the Great Basin. They then forced the Indigenous inhabitants between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas off of their ancestral hunting grounds, farming lands, and fishing waters. Over a hundred years later, I was raised near Navajo sandstone cliffs, the Virgin River, and the Pine Valley mountains in Nuwu (Southern Paiute) territory. After leaving Mormonism, this land is where I reformed my spirituality. I am in love with someone else's homeland.
As I reckon with this personal and ancestral history, I must also reckon with an inherited ideological history. The Book of Mormon is said to be a record of ancient Christians in the Americas and claims that contemporary Indigenous peoples are among the descendants of a people cursed by God. Further, this book promises that when Indigenous peoples accept the Book of Mormon as their own history, they will become a pure/White people. This settler-colonial violence has become central to my work at the intersections of Mormonism, Whiteness, and American-ness.
In the mid-1800's, after repeatedly being forced out of their homes in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, my ancestors migrated across the Great Plains into the Great Basin. They then forced the Indigenous inhabitants between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas off of their ancestral hunting grounds, farming lands, and fishing waters. Over a hundred years later, I was raised near Navajo sandstone cliffs, the Virgin River, and the Pine Valley mountains in Nuwu (Southern Paiute) territory. After leaving Mormonism, this land is where I reformed my spirituality. I am in love with someone else's homeland.
As I reckon with this personal and ancestral history, I must also reckon with an inherited ideological history. The Book of Mormon is said to be a record of ancient Christians in the Americas and claims that contemporary Indigenous peoples are among the descendants of a people cursed by God. Further, this book promises that when Indigenous peoples accept the Book of Mormon as their own history, they will become a pure/White people. This settler-colonial violence has become central to my work at the intersections of Mormonism, Whiteness, and American-ness.
curriculum vitae
nicholas b jacobsen
nicholas.b.jacobsen@gmail.com | nicholasbjacobsen.com | @nicholasbjacobsen
nicholas.b.jacobsen@gmail.com | nicholasbjacobsen.com | @nicholasbjacobsen
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EDUCATION
University of New Mexico M.F.A. Graduate Student: 2017-2020 Art & Ecology Southern Utah University B.F.A in Studio Art: 2009-2012 Ceramics Dixie State College Associate of Science: 2001-2009 |
RELATED EXPERIENCE
Central New Mexico Community College | Albuquerque, NM Part-time Instructor | 2023-current ABQ SURJ | Albuquerque, NM Organizer | 2020-Current Paper Turtle | Albuquerque, NM Ceramist | 2020-Current University of New Mexico | Albuquerque, NM Researcher / Ceramics Instructor | 2019-Current Surface and Architecture Workshop | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Plasterer and Fabricator | 2016 - 2017 Jun Kaneko Studio | Omaha, Nebraska Artist’s Assistant | 2012 - 2015 Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts | Maplecrest, NY Teaching Assistant | Summer 2012 |
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
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2023
Invitational | Utah Museum of Contemporary Art Salt Lake City, UT | TBD Juried | Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Las Vegas, NV | Modern Desert Markings 2022 Invitational Solo | Southern Utah Museum of Art Cedar City, UT | this is and is not my home Invitational | Vital Spaces Santa Fe, NM | the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not 2021 Juried | Santa Fe Railyards Park Santa Fe, NM | Urban Ecologies 2020 Juried | Center for Visual Arts Wausau, WI | Roots: Up Rooted solo | The Aerogramme Center for Arts and Culture online | from International | distantceramics.com | online Distant Ceramics | Amaca Award Winner |
2020
solo | [AC]2 Gallery Albuquerque, NM | from Invitational | Garage Door Gallery Incline Village, NV | a series of ricochets 2019 Invitational | UNM Art Museum Albuquerque, NM | Emergent 2019 Invitational | Southern Utah Museum of Art Cedar City, UT | Impact 2018 Juried | UNM Art Museum Albuquerque, NM | HereNOW 2016 KANEKO Omaha, NE | OEAA Visual Art Nominee Showcase 2015 solo | Petshop Gallery Omaha, NE | watching the ground |
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PUBLICATIONS
“Lithic Record,” co-authored with Nina Elder Ventriloquism, Performance, and Contemporary Art ed. by Jennie Hirsh and Isabelle Wallace London and New York: Routledge. May 2023 The Roots of the LDS Church's Opposition to Same Sex Marriage CounterPunch.org June 2022 Mormon Mythistries: Richard Hansen in El Mirador (removed) CounterPunch.org March 2022 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now Southwest Contemporary Magazine 2021 Unsettling Mormonism November 2020 - Current Land of my breath, people of my flesh Self-published March 2020 |
AWARDS | HONORS
2020 Amaco Award | Distant Ceramics 2019 Fellowship | Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholarship | Phyllis Muth Fine Arts Scholarship Scholarship | John L. Knight Memorial Scholarship 2018 Scholarship | Phyllis Muth Fine Arts Scholarship Scholarship | Fred & Rose Ellen Calkins Scholarship 2017 Fellowship | Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 2015 Best New Media Artist | Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards Best Emerging Artist | Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards 2012 Excellence Award | Southern Utah University |
PODCASTS
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Clouds in the Sand - A Podcast of Human Challenges
“Art and Myths of US American Innocence and Supremacy" Clouds in the Sand: Podcast of Human Challenges May 2023 Decolonized Buffalo “Unsettling Mormonism” Decolonized Buffalo March 2023 Called to Queer “nicholas b jacobsen (they/them)” Called to Queer February 2023 Faith and Capital "Unsettling Mormonism w/ nic" Faith and Capital August 2022 |
The Red Nation Podcast
“Unsettling Mormonism w/ nic & Kobi” The Red Nation December 2021 Chatter Marks “Erratic Conversations: Pt.3, Futurism and Hope.” Anchorage Musuem May 2021 A Guide to Art, Activism, & Culture “Family, Mormonism, and Whiteness” The Aerogramme Center for Arts and Culture July 2020. |
