MELANIE BERNIER is an artist, musician, beach lifeguard, and professor. She is currently the Windgate Emerging Craft Artist and Visiting Faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University.

She primarily makes fiber-based work, video, performance, and punk albums.

Bernier is a committed activist and this has landed her in handcuffs once or twice. For several years she wrote Trash is Tragic, a column about garbage, for Boston’s underground rag the Compass. She has collaborated on public art projects including Punk Rock Aerobics, New Craft Artists in Action, Bardo Gallery, and Girls Rock Campaign. She has done activist work with Queer Sport Split, Mass Equality, Extinction Rebellion, and Food Not Bombs.

Bernier has shown work at art venues such as the Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), Dirt Palace (Providence), and Evening Hours (NYC). She has toured nationally with bands including Boston Cream, the Fagettes, and the Barbazons. Her work has been reviewed by Art in America, Creative Time Reports, Vice, and Maximum Rock n’ Roll, among others.

CONTACT: melbo.elbow [at] gmail.com