Christopher Lutter-Gardella              3613 17th Ave S. Minneapolis, MN 55407 Organizational Position:

Founder, artistic director of Puppet Farm Arts, a small 501c3 non-profit arts education organization, 2001-2016. Founder and director of Big Animal Productions LLC, 2016–Present

Projects:

Kaleidoscope of Love, Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis MN, Feb 28th, 2026

Artistic Director of a mass-participation performance-art action: a 1000-person animated human-mosaic-on-landscape, a “love poem” to our justice-loving community, for its righteous response to the Metro Surge–and a communal healing ritual.

Big Heart, MayDay Parade and Festival, Minneapolis MN, May 4th

Designer/ director– encouraging courage and acting as a proclamation of our collective intention to defend the values that we hold sacred within our beloved communities and the people that live in them.

Forest Under the Sea, Kidspace Children’s Museum, Pasadena CA, Oct ’24—Mar ‘26

Designer and lead artist, in the production of an upcycled, immersive, interactive playscape of an undersea kelp forest. With a staff of 6 Minneapolis artists, and volunteers in Minneapolis and Pasadena, produced a swirling school of sardines on a spinning mobile, a gigantic cranky cabinet, with a life-sized swimming dolphin (and her baby) and a multitude of translucent jellies, crafted from waste plastics. And a whole forest of kelp.

Beyond Borders, International Sonoran Desert Alliance, Ajo AZ, Jan-Mar ‘25

Designed and led the development of a puppet performance, bringing together the 3 distinct intersecting nations of the Sonoran Desert Region: Mexico, the United States and the Tohono O’odham Nation. The project’s intention was to express intercultural solidarity and human fellowship, in the midst of a rising atmosphere of nationalism and anti-migrant sentiment.

The Farmer of Plain, Wormfarm Institute-Farm Art DTour, Plain WI, Sep 2022

Designed and facilitated community volunteers and partners in the construction of a 20-foot-tall puppet of a farmer, as an homage to farmers and the land that they cultivate. Performed by community members, as a part of the 2022 Farm Art Dtour.

Kaleidoscope Kidspace, Kidspace Children’s Museum, Pasadena CA, 2024

Designer and lead artist, in the production of a Monarch butterfly-themed play-space that filled an entire sunlit gallery. Children could pull a rope on the wall and lay underneath a swirling kaleidoscope of sunlit butterflies, pretending to be flowers in the grass. A team of 6 artists in Minneapolis, and volunteers on both ends of the line, helped hand-craft hundreds of butterflies from waste-stream materials.

Luminous Yeti, Holidazzle, Minneapolis Downtown Council, Nov-Jan, 2020-25

Designer and lead artist, in the production of an 18-ft-tall interactive, luminary marionette of a Yeti. The piece has become a veritable beloved “mascot” of the annual Holidazzle Festival, in downtown Minneapolis.

Crane Call, Science Museum of MN, 2020–2026

Designer and lead artist, in collaboration with Richard Parnell. Installed in the main entrance lobby at the Science Museum on MN, larger-than-life suspended sculptures of 2 sandhill cranes in-flight, bringing awareness to the urgency of preserving the wetlands upon which the sandhill crane relies.

Kaleidoscope-MOA, Mall of America, Spring/Summer, 2019-23

Designer and lead artist, in collaboration with artistic team of 10 and multitudes of volunteers. This massive installation brought together the broader pollinator-preservation community, mall staff, school students and lovers of butterflies. Originally intended to teach about pollination, the exhibit also taught, in the midst of the pandemic and the George Floyd uprising, about vulnerability and the healing power of the smallest, most fragile things.

Wolf and Mooz, Holidazzle, Minneapolis Downtown Council, Nov-Dec/ 2016—19

Designer and lead artist, in the production of large-scale interactive, kinetic, people-puppeted sculptures of a Wolf (Ma’iingan) and Moose (Mooz). With animated innards and spoken word audio, the sculptures expressed the interconnectivity of all things: plastic, wolves, stars, humans.

Turtle Temple, Roosevelt High School, Minneapolis, Aug 2017

Designer and Builder— Urban planter/arbor and gathering place for students, staff and neighbors.

Pedal-powered Carousel, Juxtaposition Arts, Minneapolis, Jul 2016

Designer and Builder— in collaboration with Brandon Brown/Onyx Cycles Artistic, interactive, community-engagement tool for play and fitness.

Wolf and Moose, City of Minneapolis/ Northern Lights/ Meet Minneapolis, Jun-Oct 2016

Designer and Lead Artist—guiding a team of 9 artists and Juxtaposition Arts apprentices. Creative City Challenge winner. 4-month, interactive, public art installation on the Minneapolis Convention Center plaza. Spectacle sculptures of a wolf and a moose, teaching of interconnectivity.

Water-wheel Play Table, Seward Childcare Center, Minneapolis, Jun–Sep 2012

Designer and Builder—in collaboration with Ryan Billig. Kinetic water-play area for Seward Childcare Center, as an integrated element of a storm-water run-off irrigation system.

Big Boots, FermentationFest/ WormFarm Institute, Reedsburg, WI, Oct 2011-12

Designer and Lead Builder—in collaboration with community volunteers. Sculptural installation/puppet of spectacle-scale work-boots, as a part of a tour of art-on-the landscape. Work was featured on NEA website and in Public Art Review.

PASPider, Public Art Saint Paul, St Paul, MN, Mar-Jul 2009–2013

Designer and Builder– in association with fabrication team. Mobile community engagement tool, which is at once, a readily-deployable community arts lab and giant mechanical spider marionette.

Community-Arts and Educational Project Direction (selection):

Todd the Squid, Granite Falls Arts Council, Granite Falls, MN, September 2024

Designed and facilitated a community arts workshop, in which a giant, illuminated squid marionette was created and performed at the local ”Squidfest”. Inspired by a pandemic-era urban legend of a squid that was sited in the waters of the Minnesota River, which flows through the center of the town

Full Moon Mutual Aide Puppet Project, Full Moon Puppet Show, Mpls, 2022-25

Teaching artist, technical trainer and host for an artist-training program bringing artists into the service of mutual-aide organizations seeking puppets to strengthen and deepen their messages and missions. In 2025, led the artistic team in the design and construction of a George Floyd Square puppetted float for Brass Solidarity Band.

SkyE’ko and her Ni.ka.she, WahZhaZhe Puppet Theater, Pawhuska OK, Aug, 2022

Designed puppets and facilitated community-puppet arts workshops, for the production of an Osage creation story puppet play, produced by the WahZhaZhe Puppet Theater (Welana Queton) and the Osage History Museum.

MonkeyBear’s Harmolodic Workshop, Minneapolis MN, May-Jun 2017

Consulted members of the MBHW’s POC cohort, in technical and artistic development.

Benton Stearns Voyaguers Program, Sauk Rapids MN, Mar 2017

Program Designer and Teaching Artist. Designed and presented arts education programming for special needs middle and high school youth, in an alternative school setting.

Native American Community Development Institute, Minneapolis MN, Mar-Apr 2017

Project Designer and Trainer. Designed mask templates, for the production of clan animal masks, in a community workshop, culminating in a parade of clan animals for the kick-off of Indian Awareness Month (May).

Awards and Grants:

*McKnight/ Forecast Professional Development Grantee

*McKnight Theater Artist Fellowship, 2012

*Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, 2009

*Sustainable Practices Fellow, Public Art St. Paul, 2008

*Bush Artist Fellow, Bush Foundation, 2006

Teaching Rosters:

COMPAS teaching artist, on-going, since 2006

Education:

BA English Literature, Minor Art Northland College Ashland, Wisconsin