Newly Formed City Arts Commission Welcomes Members
Published on October 17, 2024
New members of the City’s Arts Commission and Visual Arts Committee were unanimously approved by the Sioux Falls City Council on Wednesday evening. The Arts Commission, a City board created last fall and the first of its kind in South Dakota, welcomes seven new members, while the Visual Arts Committee, which operates under the Arts Commission, welcomes four members to join three currently on the committee.
“We reviewed dozens of applications, which included an excellent pool of applicants for the commission and committee, and we feel the members chosen represent diverse backgrounds and, importantly, are all passionate about fostering the arts in our community,” said Maren Engel, the City’s Arts Coordinator, whose position was created in tandem with the Arts Commission last fall. “We are excited to move this important work forward for the City.”
Like other City boards, the City collected applications, and members were appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Sioux Falls City Council. Based on the ordinance that created the Arts Commission, members should be arts advocates and represent a diverse mixture of Sioux Falls residents representing arts organizations, and experience with architecture or design, community development, and finance and business.
The Arts Commission will perform a variety of duties while serving as an advisory body to the Mayor and City Council on matters pertaining to the arts and the integration of art to activate public spaces and neighborhoods. The Arts Commission is required to meet at least once per quarter, although a more regular meeting cadence is expected now that the commission members have been determined.
New Arts Commission members include:
Ivy Oland Dandar
Dander is an environmental design consultant and owns Oland Arts Consulting. She has design experience in the healthcare, corporate, hospitality, and residential sectors. Ivy sat on the Mayor’s Arts Task Force, which successfully initiated the creation of the City’s Arts Coordinator position and the new Arts Commission.
Lisa Conlin
Conlin is a professional dancer, choreographer, director, and educator. She is the co-founder and co-director of LiRa Dance Theatre, a professional dance company, and is on faculty at Balleraena Dance Studio, the Good Night Theater Collective, and Spotlight Theatre Company. She also founded the Rise Up Artist Mentorship Program, a program that pairs talented youth/young adults with working professional artists of all mediums in Sioux Falls.
Vaney Hariri
Hariri is the co-founder of Think 3D Solutions, a consulting company that focuses on organizational culture and leadership development. Hariri is a motivational speaker and writer, musician, and artist. He has served on many boards including the Levitt and Downtown Sioux Falls.
Mike Hart
Hart is the co-owner and founder of the advertising agency Fresh Produce, LLC. Within Fresh Produce, Hart also owns and operates an art space, Ipso Gallery. Hart is a musician and plays in professional ensembles and volunteers with local marching band programs and drumlines.
Em Nguyen
Nguyen is an artist, lifestyle photographer, and founder and curator of “Art Collective,” an annual weekend event that brings together local artists to display and sell their work.
Jennifer Smith Hoesing
Smith Hoesing has extensive development and nonprofit experience in the community. She has held a number of executive director roles, including with Stockyard Ag, Embe, Dakotabilities, and now, Girls Scouts Dakota Horizons. She has served on numerous boards, including the Sioux Falls Chamber Diplomat Committee and the former Visual Arts Commission.
Jim Speirs
Speirs is the executive director for South Dakota’s arts service and advocacy organization, Arts South Dakota, and a founding member of the Sioux Falls Arts Council. Speirs is also a musician and performs regularly throughout the state.
New Visual Arts Committee members include:
Alix Andal
Andal works at MarketBeat as a senior web and graphic designer. She has also worked with SculptureWalk, Lawrence and Schiller, and MyxMedia, and has lectured about web and graphic design at the University of South Dakota—Sioux Falls.
Kathy Dang
Dang is an art teacher at Hawthorne Elementary, a visual arts instructional coach for Sioux Falls Public Schools, and an adjunct professor at the University of Sioux Falls. This year, Dang was named Elementary Art Teacher of the Year.
Scott Parsons
Parsons is an international award-winning artist and has received numerous public art commissions across the United States and Canada for churches, museums, airports, hospitals, research facilities, university buildings, and transportation centers. He is a professor in the art department at Augustana University, where he teaches painting, drawing, and a travel course in architectural glass art.
Tyson Schultz
Schultz is a graphic designer at Matt Jensen Marketing and the founder and co-director of Untitled.10, a visual art nonprofit that creates art events in public spaces and gives new and emerging artists in Sioux Falls a platform to share their work. This year, Untitled.10 collaborated with the Great Plains Zoo, Cherapa Place, and Rehfeldts to highlight the work of local artists.
The new members join current Visual Arts Committee members Joe Schaeffer, Wyatt Dickson, and Mike Jamison, whose terms end in spring 2025.