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Anika Todd

@anikatodd

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Artist Anika Todd walks us through the process of their work in Coyote Time

Anika Todd @anikatodd is an artist and educator whose work investigates Western principles of property that authorize human control of earth and sky. Reaching into the air and below the ground, Todd uses sculpture and video to reconfigure materials and imaging techniques historically used for surveillance and the control of public space, repurposing them for collective and playful use.

Todd earned a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, and currently teaches sculpture at the Sam Fox School of Art and Design at Washington University in St. Louis. They have created site-specific outdoor works for NON STNDRD @stndrdexhibitions, MO (2025), and have presented solo exhibitions at Erin Cluley Projects, TX (2024); Lydian Stater, NY (2023); and Flux Factory, NY (2021).

They have participated in residencies nationally and internationally, including the NARS Foundation (2020) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019). They received an Austin Cultural Arts Council Award in 2019 and were a finalist for the NYFA Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design Award in 2022.

Anika Todd’s commission is curated by Stefanie Hessler @steffihessler

@counterpublic brings Coyote Time to St. Louis this fall. Experience our Triennial exhibition from September 12–December 12, 2026.

Video produced by Justin Solomon + Nyara Williams of NEU ER WORLD @neuer.world taken in St. Louis, Missouri by @anikatodd

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4 months ago

land arts anniversary ☝️

here are some Muley Point pictures to celebrate!!
1 year since making art in the sky with this glorious crew

the next crew, 2026, is there now 🌀
wishing them earths' shadow!!! @land_arts @landartsoftheamericanwest taken in Muley Point, Utah by @anikatodd

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a month ago

excerpt from a two-channel video essay 𝘛𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳

this work was made from a series of balloon camera experiments and writings from the semester in @landartsoftheamericanwest

excited to have this work, which looks at the ethics of viewing from above, included in the @snakehousevt film festival next week, as part of a series of films that think through the politics of the lens

link in bio taken in Wendover, Utah by @anikatodd

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6 months ago

stills from 2-channel video 𝘛𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳

a short essay connected to this video work, is published in new issue of @swcontemporary !

link in bio

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“Through a tethered balloon camera, Anika Todd surveys Nevada’s intertwined histories of speed, surveillance, and war.” The essay traces the history of Wendover air-force and development of the Norden Bombsight, the tool used to drop the atomic bomb. taken in Wendover, Utah by @anikatodd

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6 months ago

“The Wendover Historic Airfield Museum says it was for American glory. But when I look at the faces of the smiling pilots in the archival photos, I read something more like escape. Not in a nationalistic sense, but a personal hunger—a desire to shed an earthbound weight.“

💪

Anika Todd’s video essay, Tether, questions what is lost when a place is understood from above without maintaining a connection to the ground it surveys. Watch, listen, or read at the link in our bio. by @anikatodd

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5 months ago

Tether is a video essay that began as a simple experiment: a camera lifted into the air over the Wendover Salt Flats by a weather balloon, tethered to the ground by a string. The video essay situates this footage within the history of Wendover, where the bombsight for the atomic bomb was developed during World War II, and examines how framing operates in both military and artistic contexts. At its core, Tether challenges the idea of a “god’s-eye view” as neutral or objective, asking what is lost when a place is understood from above without maintaining a connection to the ground it surveys.

💪

Anika Todd (b. 1992, Boston, MA) is an artist and educator whose work investigates Western principles of property that authorize human control of earth and sky. Todd earned a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, and currently teaches sculpture at the Sam Fox School of Art and Design in MO. They have created site-specific outdoor works for Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, TX (2024) and NONstndrd, MO (2025), and have presented solo exhibitions at Erin Cluley Projects, TX (2024); Lydian Stater, NY (2023); and Flux Factory, NY (2021). Todd has participated in residencies nationally and internationally, including the NARS Foundation (2020) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2019). They received an Austin Cultural Arts Council Award in 2019 and were a finalist for the NYFA Architecture/Environmental Structures/Design Award in 2022. by @anikatodd

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5 months ago

💥💥📢📢 I'm working on a sculpture for the waterfront for this round of counterpublic! What a dream to be making a site work for my favorite place in St. Louis. Seriously honored to be part of this artist line up 💥💥

RIVER WORKS
Stretching along the edge of downtown St. Louis and anchored by the Gateway Arch, the Mississippi Riverfront will host over a dozen site-responsive works that reconnect the city to the river. Anchored by major new public commissions by artists Glenn Ligon and Marguerite Humeau, the works extend across post-industrial sites, waterfront pathways, and a former aquarium activated by Max Hooper Schneider. Emerging technologies come to the fore with Li Yi-Fan, Alice Bucknell, Cooper Jacoby.

COUNTERPUBLIC, is a triennial exhibition based in St. Louis, Missouri, and one of the largest public art exhibitions in the United States, is pleased to announce the 48 participating artists, duos, and collectives gathered from around the world for its third edition, Coyote Time. On view September 12–December 12, 2026, Counterpublic 2026 will present ambitious new commissions and historical reinterpretations furthering their mission to reimagine art’s role in public life.

Unfolding across five key sites shaped by St. Louis’s historical and civic conditions, Coyote Time brings together artists engaging urgent issues including education, climate, technology and immigration. The title, Coyote Time, draws from Alice Bucknell’s 2026 triennial commission, a video game set within St. Louis’ City Museum, and refers to the brief moment in gameplay that allows a player to decide between leaping forward or returning to safety. For its 2026 edition, curated by Jordan Carter, Raphael Fonseca, Stefanie Hessler, Nora N. Khan, and Wanda Nanibush, Counterpublic invites you to inhabit Coyote Time, framing uncertainty as a space for experimentation, risk, and possibility.

@counterpublic
🌀🌀🌀 taken in St. Louis by @anikatodd

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6 months ago

This semester I taught a site class on the Mississippi. Moving between the floodwall, the river, and the studio we thought about rivers, wild vs. controlled space, and how landscapes hold stories and histories.
They made beautiful thoughtful work, thought i would share here,

Thank you to the class 🌀🌀

1- Mississippi River just south of Gateway Arch
2- Installation of student sculptures on the river front
3- @adam._deutsch material exploration thinking about distance
4- @adam._deutsch sculptural installation thinking about distance
5- @pandoras_tupperware sketchbook of site visit
6- @pandoras_tupperware crochet hook made for river
7- Carol’s wind expeiriment that found sun and sound
8- @leafdirt "Figure/Funerary Shroud"
9- @leafdirt "Projection of Archaeological Material Discovered Along Mississippi River and Archaeologist's Log"
10- @inktophile "a tool for gathering"
11- @inktophile "instructions for gathering"
12- @kieraesullivan - a boat made of cross-sections and light
13- Alejandra - proposal for site intervention
14- @hh3ra - "Obscura"
15- @hh3ra - "Sun Seeking" 3:14min video
16- @maxwellius_spencerus - barrel installation to hold the river and the sound of it
17- @maxwellius_spencerus - river map/wings
18- Class site visit to the Alton Lock and Dam.

big thank you to
@michaelrallen for leading us on a historical tour of the riverfront and
@leveye for being honorable TA!
@washu_samfox_engage for supporting the course to work offsite! and
@land_arts for the semester of inspiration 🌀 taken in Mississippi River, Downtown STL by @anikatodd

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5 months ago

taken in National Building Arts Center by @anikatodd

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a year ago

taken in National Building Arts Center by @anikatodd

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a year ago

Lock 27 🔵

Situated in the historical flood basin of the Mississippi River, Lock 27 reflects on the unseen rhythm of the 27th lock and dam, located 10 miles upstream from the site. The piece simulates the experience of passing through the lock on a small fishing boat, capturing the gradual 18-foot shift in water level, where movement is so subtle it feels like stillness.

Using mapping data from real-time barge traffic, the sculpture’s motor moves a chair and a small piece of blue glass in tune with the barge movement, reflecting the mechanical rhythm of the now-controlled river that once fluctuated across the American Bottom. by @anikatodd

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a year ago

The sculpture Lock 27 thinks through the experience of passing through a Mississippi shipping lock on a small fishing boat. The installation uses the height of a 16-foot decommissioned sand bunker to describe the slow monumental shift in the water level of the lock, recreating a movement that is so subtle it feels like stillness.

I collaborated with @lucasstagram to develop a code-based system that connects the sculpture to the real-time water level in the lock. He created a system that tracks barge movements using public lock APIs and vessel traffic data, translating their northbound and southbound passages into operational instructions for the sculpture.

The work is located on the American Bottom, a landscape that was formerly a watery delta of the Mississippi. Once a part of a river basin that flooded naturally, the sculpture looks to reconnect the site to the altered river, creating a tether that links to the water’s now mechanized rhythm.

Come see this Saturday from 3-6 pm for the opening @nationalbuildingartcenter
@stndrdexhibitions by @anikatodd

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2 years ago