Award-Winning Designer Natalie Chanin Featured Guest at Sunseri Speaker Series

Oct. 17, 2024

Michelle R. Eubanks , UNA, at meubanks@p8216.com, 256.765.4392

FLORENCE, AL – Natalie Chanin – designer, artist, writer, and founder of Alabama Chanin, Threadways, and The School of Making – has been selected as the featured guest as part of the distinguished Sunseri Speaker Series at the University of North Alabama. The event is scheduled for 6 p.m., Oct. 22, in the McKinney Center Gallery on Seminary Street in downtown Florence.

“We are thrilled to be able to bring a designer and innovator of Chanin’s caliber to campus as part of the Sunseri Speaker Series,” said Dr. Meghan Merciers, Associate Dean for the School of the Arts. “Her commitment to sustainable initiatives as well as entrepreneurship are especially noteworthy and will be a valuable opportunity for our students and the community at large to hear from her.”

Chanin has a Bauhaus-inspired degree in Environmental Design with an emphasis in industrial and craft-based textiles from North Carolina State University. In 2000, she left a career in Europe and New York City to return to her hometown in the Shoals community of northwest Alabama to begin the work of sustainable design, craft preservation, organic supply chains, local manufacturing, and the social equity work which culminates in three organizations today.

The Sunseri Speaker Series is made possible through a generous donation from UNA alumnus David Sunseri, who sponsored the series in order to honor his late sister, Jennifer Leigh Sunseri. The annual series integrates art and creativity with the sciences to drive innovation.

The event is free and open to the public. The McKinney Center is at 205 S. Seminary Street.

About The University of North Alabama

The University of North Alabama is an accredited, comprehensive regional state university offering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs through the colleges of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering; the Sanders College of Business and Technology; Education and Human Sciences; and the Anderson College of Nursing and Health Professions. Occupying a 130-acre campus in a residential section of Florence, Alabama, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia. UNA Athletics, a renowned collegiate athletics program with seven (7) Division II National Championships, is now a proud member of NCAA Division I as part of the Atlantic Sun and United Athletic conferences. The University of North Alabama is an equal opportunity institution and does not discriminate in the admission policy on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, disability, age, or national origin. For more: p8216.com and p8216.com/unaworks/.