Amir Berenjian
Amir Berenjian is a global thought leader in designing, creating, and implementing immersive technology tools at scale. As CEO of REM5 STUDIOS, he helps mission-driven organizations and brands utilize virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and spatial computing to inspire action. His team’s latest project, Apporter La Vie, places viewers on the frontlines of vaccine delivery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Prior to founding REM5, Amir spent 12+ years in investment banking and corporate finance, focusing on mergers and acquisitions at BMO Capital Markets, Greene Holcomb Fisher, and Chartwell Capital Solutions.
Amir’s Lake Superior Design Retreat talk is titled “When the Frame Dissolves: The Post-Mobile Era of Design.” For the last few decades, we have lived much of our lives through tiny rectangles. Now the rectangle is dissolving. And spatial computing, like augmented reality and virtual reality, moves our digital lives into the physical world, layered onto the streets we walk or fully immersive in the rooms we inhabit.
This isn’t just a new gadget; it is a shift in human perception. When the medium becomes reality, the old rules collapse. We are no longer bound by physics or distance. We can now bridge space and time, bringing memories back to life and democratizing experiences once impossible. The question is: When the world becomes the interface, do we create more connections or more distractions?
Jennifer Guthrie, FASLA
Jennifer Guthrie, FASLA, is a founding partner of GGN and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Her work ranges broadly, encompassing urban districts of green streets and mixed-use housing, public squares, rooftop gardens, urban farms, and cultural institutions.
Mary Jo Hoffman
Mary Jo Hoffman is an artist-photographer, renowned for her unique and personal engagement with the natural world around her, primarily in North America’s Great Lakes bioregion and the iconic scrubland of Mediterranean France. She is best known for her multi-year project “STILL,” where she created and posted one photo every day, on a white background, of a natural object found near her, whether leaves, flowers, seedpods, twigs, insects, or animals.
“STILL” images reflect Mary Jo’s profound admiration for nature’s subtle, seasonal expressions. Her photography encourages viewers to pause and contemplate one thing at a time, to be still, if only for a moment, in a world of distracted hurrying from one thing to another. The project is an endorsement of the power of dailiness, and an invitation to re-see the too-often overlooked “infraordinary,” that surrounds us–those sights, sounds, and subtle changes that we think of as common and familiar, but which can come alive with delightful possibility when paid attention to.
Mary Jo’s book STILL: The Art of Noticing features 275 of the most stunning photographs the author-artist has accumulated over thousands of consecutive days of daily shooting accompanied by perceptive, deeply felt, and often humorous essays illuminating the insights gained through this daily creative practice.
Mary-Jo lives in Shoreview, Minnesota, on Turtle Lake, with her husband, Steve, a food writer and author, and her aging and indulged puggle, Jack, with whom she takes walks as often as possible, in woods and fields, and along lakeside trails, on the hunt for that day’s STILL blog subject.
At the Lake Superior Design Retreat, Mary Jo will be talking about “STILL: The Art of Noticing.” Every single day for over a decade, Mary Jo Hoffman has made a photograph of found nature – no subject too small or too ordinary. For Hoffman, a former aeronautical engineer, this daily ritual cracked open profound revelations about the connectedness of all things, the importance of place, and her own life. This daily practice has culminated into the bestselling book Still: The Art of Noticing, already in its 5th printing. The book is a collection of 275 breathtaking photographs from Hoffman’s enormous archive, accompanied by perceptive, deeply felt, and oftentimes humorous essays illuminating the insights she’s gained from over twelve years of intimate daily noticing. Join Hoffman as she shares her artistic process, approach to noticing, and the concept of micro-seasons, inspired by a Japanese approach to seasons, which divides the year into 72 five-day bursts.
Amy Noble Seitz
Amy Noble Seitz forged a niche in the field of traveling exhibitions for the international museum and attractions industry. Before founding Exhibits Development Group + culturenut, and a non-profit entity, she held various management positions in F100 to small businesses, including Champps Entertainment, Carlson Companies, Lintex Corporation, Northwest Airlines, AGORA, Steele Foundation and United Exhibits Group.
Amy has served on various boards in the arts and cultural space, an African-American humanitarian non-profit, developed projects with many embassies in Washington D.C and has filled up three passports cultivating cultural exchange over the past 20 years. Her projects have been on 6 continents and more than 30 countries and seen by millions of museum visitors.
She has developed and distributed numerous exhibitions which include Downton Abbey, Treasure of Napoleon, America the Beautiful, MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition, Sherlock Holmes: The International Exhibition, Pompeii: The Immortal City, Beyond Rubik’s Cube and most recently, Princess Diana: Love Life Legacy.
Clients and collaborators include National Geographic, Guggenheim, National Gallery of Art, Discovery Channel, Biltmore Estate, ComicCon Museum and esteemed art, science, history, popular culture, archaeological and children museums, historic homes, and zoos. Her vast collaborations include Embassies in Washington D.C., and with major brands like Discovery Channel, Warner Brothers, National Archives, NBCU, PBS and include health-care leaders Mayo Clinic, Hennepin County Medical Center, Edinburgh’s Royal Surgeon’s Hall, University of Edinburgh and the University of Minnesota.
Suyao Tian
Suyao Tian is a professional artist based in the Twin Cities. She currently serves as adjunct faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is the founder and owner of Viewpoint Gallery, an executive board member of Art Buddies, and a board member of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association.
She earned her BA from the University of Central Arkansas and her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. As both an independent curator and a water-based media abstract painter, her professional practice spans creative leadership and artistic production. She is represented by the renowned Claire Oliver Gallery in New York City and MAIA Contemporary Art Gallery in Mexico City.
Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, and her paintings are included in the permanent collections of prestigious museums, institutions, and distinguished collectors, such as the North Dakota Museum of Art, the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the University of Minnesota, and Fidelity Investments, among others. In the commercial art arena, she has collaborated with MSP International Airport and partnered with leading companies including Target, West Elm, Room & Board, and BOND International Design Agency.
Suyao’s Lake Superior Design Retreat talk is titled “How a Life Changes When You Ask “What If”: The Practice of Choosing.” For me, giving myself a chance was never about guaranteeing success or avoiding failure—it was about allowing myself to try and, through that process, to better understand who I am. Like a plant pushing through a small crack, even the smallest opening created space for something new to grow. For a long time, my choices were shaped by family expectations, social standards, and fear, until I realized that reclaiming my life meant moving from passive acceptance to active choice, no longer waiting for permission. Once I committed fully—despite uncertainty, language barriers, age, and inexperience—I began to discover capacities I did not know I had. Taking responsibility for every choice, including mistakes and losses, was not separate from freedom; it was what made freedom possible, allowing uncertainty to become growth and fear to turn into something I could act through rather than avoid.
Kathy Yerich
Co-author of the popular local field guide, Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest (Adventure Publications, 1st Ed. 2014, 2nd Edition 2020), Kathy Yerich has been hanging out with the Minnesota Mycological Society (MMS) and North American Mycological Association (NAMA) for almost 20 years. As a board member in both of those organizations, her mission is to make learning about mushrooms fun and accessible for everyone! Annual NAMA forays have brought her around the country in search of fungi. Like mushrooms, mushroom enthusiasts are an interesting bunch and nothing beats time in the woods!