The 2026 McKnight Fellowship for Book Artist.
The 2026 McKnight Fellowship for Book Artist.
Presented by Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
Minnesota book artists Christopher Selleck and Brooks Turner will each receive 25K and professional development opportunities. Please join us in congratulating the 2026 McKnight Book Artist Fellows, Christopher Selleck and Brooks Turner!
Christopher is an artist, photographer, and book artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores masculinity, identity, and vulnerability through photographs, sculpture, and intimate book-based forms. Brooks is an artist, writer, educator, and parent. Through methodologies that include archival research, collage, drawing, and installation, Brooks engages histories of labor, fascism, and resistance in Minnesota.
Christopher and Brooks will both be awarded $25,000 in unrestricted funds to explore and deepen their art practice thanks to our partnership with the McKnight Foundation, which supports two Minnesotans who demonstrate sustained practices within the book arts annually.
The pair will also receive a range of professional benefits through MCBA, including studio visits from a national arts professional; stipends for travel, residencies, and educational support; the opportunity to participate in an artist panel at Open Book; 24/7 studio access for two years; and a group exhibition in MCBA’s Main Gallery.
Esteemed jurors Anthea Black, Imin Yeh, and Benjamin Rinehart shared their positive impressions of the two artists' portfolios following virtual studio visits with five finalists in early May.
“This award is really the gift of time and freedom—which is so rare and deeply meaningful in our era of accelerating labor exploitation. Personally this means time to complete ongoing projects, time to make new experiments, but also time away from labor and time to be with my family.” -Brooks Turner Imin Yeh reflected, “I was drawn to Brooks' lifelong research, passion, advocacy, and teaching in anti-fascist histories. The work exploits a large range of the history print and paper and their relationship to stories, news, propaganda”.
“During the fellowship, I plan to develop artists’ books and sculptural container forms that integrate archival research, ephemera, and tactile structures, while continuing to experiment with systems that support both small editions and unique artists’ books. Through this work—alongside travel, collaboration, and
dialogue with peers—I aim to further investigate queer histories and personal narratives, creating intimate works that foster reflection, discovery, and sustained engagement.” -Christopher Selleck
Anthea Black felt that, “Christopher's sense of craft, objecthood, and representation of queer masculinity in the artist's book form [was] meticulously considered” and that, “this McKnight award is both a recognition of his work, and my expression of excitement for what's coming next in his practice”.
Christopher M. Selleck is an artist, photographer, and book artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores masculinity, identity, and vulnerability through photographs, sculpture, and intimate book-based forms. Drawing on the visual language of early 20th-century physique photography, his work reinterprets the idealized male body by presenting diverse, male-presenting weightlifters as complex individuals marked by idiosyncrasy, openness, and humanity. Informed by his experience growing up closeted in the post-AIDS, pre-internet 1990s, Selleck engages questions of queer identity, body image, and the internalized pressures of normative masculinity, often incorporating self-portraiture to examine his own evolving sense of self. His tactile artist books and sculptural objects—such as reimagined weightlifting forms in ceramic and plaster—serve as metaphors for strength, vulnerability, and emotional weight, while their layered, compartmentalized structures reflect the constraints and negotiations of gendered experience. Functioning as both personal inquiry and cultural archive, Selleck’s work preserves and honors queer histories and lived experiences that persist alongside and challenge dominant narratives of masculinity. He recently presented a solo exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and was a recipient of the MCBA/Jerome Book Arts Residency.
Brooks Turner is an artist, writer, educator, and parent. Through methodologies that include archival research, collage, drawing, and installation, Turner engages histories of labor, fascism, and resistance in Minnesota, with a focus on the 1934 Truck Drivers Strike. A member of the Remember 1934 Collective, he helps organize support for contemporary labor struggles through commemorating this history. Turner’s solo exhibitions include Voters in Revolt at Hair+Nails, Pedagogy and Propaganda at the Perlman Teaching Museum, and Legends and Myths of Ancient Minnesota at the Weisman Art Museum. He is a 2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and his work is held in the collections of the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. His essays have appeared in Labor Art Review, Art Papers, MnArtists, and TEMP.
ABOUT THE MINNESOTA CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS:
As the largest and most comprehensive center of its kind in the nation, Minnesota Center for Book Arts ignites creativity and community through the book arts. From the traditional crafts of papermaking, letterpress printing, and hand bookbinding to experimental artmaking and self-publishing techniques, MCBA supports the limitless creative evolution of book arts through workshops and programming for adults, youth, families, K-12 students, and teachers. MCBA is located in the Open Book building in downtown Minneapolis, alongside partner organizations The Loft Literary Center and Milkweed Editions. To learn more, visit www.mnbookarts.org.