At graduate school, in a joint program between New York University and International Center of Photography, Engelstad studied with and was influenced by Peter Campus and fellow NYU alumni Félix González-Torres.
Voices From the Center is an oral history project on changes in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary since the demolition of the Berlin Wall.
[5][6][7][8] The project stemmed from Engelstad's experience as a Fulbright Scholar teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Wanting to understand the impact of socialism on individuals and their outlook towards the USA, in relationship to her own experience growing up in the Western side of The Cold War, Engelstad had conversations with people about their lives before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Many of the participants, who ranged in age from 45–85, felt that despite the historical attention paid to life during Eastern bloc communism, the profundity of their experiences was being lost to history.
Material from Voices From the Center was exhibited at galleries and museums, including Stanica Žilina-Záriečie Cultural Centre (Žilina, Slovak Republic), threewalls (Chicago), libraries public art produced throughout Slovakia, including a public transit campaign and on the project website, https://voicesfromthecenter.net/, which was designed in collaboration with the Polish design team Grafixpol, as an art piece in and of itself.
First produced in 2009 in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Engelstad revisited and expanded the project in 2019, with a focus on interviewing people that were part of the Solidarity movement in Poland, including Bogdan Borusewicz.
[1][2] Participants including artists, graphic designers, activists, organizations and youth created billboards and posters on racial equality issues, which were then discussed in community forums.
Engelstad was guest producer of a special issue of the online edition of the MIT journal ARTMargins, on historical and contemporary environmental art in the former Eastern Bloc countries and their relationship to capitalism, globalization, climate change and the legacy of socialism.
The project included interviews and other forms of interaction with artists and cultural producers concerned with the idea and the material reality of what goes by the name of the "natural environment."
The material that was sent to Engelstad by the survey participants, including poetry, prose, images and music was collected into a book and was followed by design of a public space with furniture and tableware within the gallery.
In partnership with Mark Randall of World Studio, Engelstad created and produced a multi-platform media art project called Peace Signs on youth gun violence in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago.
[6][7] Produced in collaboration with Canadian artist Deborah Bennett in Montréal and Toronto, the year-long project Identity/Identité was on the relationship between language, cultural identity, and nationalism between the citizens of English and French speaking Canada.
In: Exploring New Horizons (peer review), edited by Mary Sherman, Vernon Press, Wilmington, Delaware, 2019 Markus Schinwald at CCA Wattis for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco.
In: Developing Civic Engagement in Urban Public Art Programs, edited by Jessica L. DeShazo and Zachary Smith (peer review), pages 103 – 107.
Essay for The Nurse, Katherine L. Ross exhibition catalog, Lillstreet Learning Center, 2002 Art Works: Teenagers and Artists Collaborate on the Polaroid 20 x 24 Camera.