An avid collaborator, Sutton is a member of the collective Plotform (Jane D. Marsching + Andi Sutton) whose projects activate human engagement with local ecologies, particularly the other-than-human species on this planet that are threatened by the global climate crisis. She is also a member of The National Bitter Melon Council (NBMC), a collective that worked actively from 2004 – 2014 and continues to produce events across the world wherever bitterness resides. The NBMC uses the form of a vegetable promotion board to create public projects that use the flavor and emotion of bitterness – and Bitter Melon – to spark dialogue about difference, foreignness, and community, and explore the boundaries between art and life. Combining performance art and community development practice, the Bitter Melon focused events of the NBMC creates projects that propose alternative models for community and coming together and spark dialogue about bitterness, foreignness, and flavor. Among Andi’s art and community building work has also included a curatorial practice, writing and art criticism, workshops and teaching, and the production of public events and happenings.
Sutton has received grants from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Council for the Arts and the LEF Foundation and is the winner of the MFA Traveling Scholars Award and, along with The National Bitter Melon Council, the Artadia Art Award (Boston). Alongside her career as an artist, Sutton has led the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality at MIT as Program Manager and supported the sustainability and resilience of the world’s water and food systems through her work as communications and program manager at the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), also at MIT. She is currently Executive Director of the Southeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnership at the University of Minnesota, working with rural communities to connect U of M resources to help solve local sustainability challenges. She a passionate cook, gardener, and activist mother, can’t help but incorporate each, metaphorically and literally, into her work.
