Welcome to the Bunker Questionnaire, a new series in which we ask Bunker Projects residents and exhibiting artists three questions from Marcel Proust’s famous Proust Questionnaire, a survey that purported to reveal a person’s true nature. We hope their answers and the accompanying photos allow you to get to know them and their work a little bit more.
Since being named Pittsburgh’s “Emerging Artist of the Year” in 2019, Saige Baxter has transitioned from welding work work to installation and mixed media. She creates interactive pieces that invite viewers to touch, play, and physically explore the work, transforming materials into unexpected solutions. She is also an educator, and her experience teaching has ignited a fascination with play and sensory experiences, leading her to use vibrant color, textures and found materials to build fantastical environments that possess nostalgic familiarity. Baxter has installed public sculptures in Greensburg, PA, Frick Park and The Museum Lab of Pittsburgh. Her first international project, a sculpture, was completed in 2018 and is now permanently installed in Messejana, Portugal, through the Buinho artist residency. In 2024, she exhibited in the Every Woman’s Biennial exhibition in New York City, and she displayed her installation Seeing Through the Veil in Brew House Arts’ glass vitrine for six months. In her residency at Bunker Projects, she focused on developing a playful prototype for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh’s Tough Residency application.
Describe yourself in three words.
“Ambitious, playful, passionate.”
Who are your favorite artists/the ones who’ve influenced you most?
“Liza Lou, Nick Cave, Louise Bourgeois.”
What is your idea of happiness?
“Having the time and space to honor my creativity, curiosity and freedom. (Also: eating cheese).”
Photography by Anna Brewer Productions
If you’d like to support Bunker Projects’ mission to provide a safe, equitable space for emerging artists to develop their practice and create new works for exhibition, please consider joining our Bunker Commons program or making a one-time or recurring donation here. We are so grateful for your generosity.
