The Inaugural Residents: One Year Later, Presentations from our 2010 Studio Residency for NYC Arts Workers

Wednesday, August 10th 6-9pm                                                                                           At EFA Project Space, 323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor

They took over EFA Project Space’s 3,000 square foot gallery for two weeks last August 2010 to focus on their individual studio practice. In that time, they planned, they drafted, they researched, they constructed, they painted, they edited, they dug, they recorded, and they photographed. Our residents drew inspiration from their previous experience(s) with EFA Project Space, the gallery or their immediate environment, their careers as arts workers, and each artist’s ongoing curiosity in topics of exploration relating to their individual lifestyle and practice. Since the 2010 Residency inception, the residents have continued to meet throughout the year to support each other and share their progress in artistic practice, experimentation, change of direction and their related duties in the arts. 

Now, one year later, EFA Project Space’s inaugural residents would like to share their studio residency experience with you. We know the night’s events will instill a sense of urgency and inspiration in others through these discussions of artistic practice and balancing a life in the arts as arts workers and artists. Please join us on the evening of Wednesday, August 10th for a series of presentations that reflect on what the residents have accomplished, and where they are going. 

For more information about the Studio Residency for New York City Arts Workers, please click here and refer to the 2010 Residency blog.

Our 2010 Residents:

Tova Carlin is a New York-based artist and writer. As T.J. Carlin, she is an art editor at TimeOut magazine and contributes regularly to Art Review in London and MAP magazine in Scotland. She has written for Art in America online and KnitKnit magazine and has an upcoming project for Paper Monument. Solo projects have been on view recently at 179 Canal and Brown University; her work has been shown at KS Art, Dinaburg Arts and the Lower East Side Printshop, as well as in the Gwangju Biennale in Korea and various alternative spaces and museums around the country. She has been a visiting artist and lecturer at the School of Visual Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. She is a member of the Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study. She has a BA in Biology from Harvard University and a graduate degree from Rhode Island School of Design.

Sean Carroll is an artist working in photography and video. He is also an arts administrator based in Brooklyn, NY. His works have been shown in exhibitions in New York, Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, and North Carolina.  He was awarded a Young Artist Grant from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He received an MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY and a BA in Visual Media from American University in Washington, DC. Sean is Program Manager of Artist Residencies at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC).

Paul Clay is a visual artist and curator who works in a wide variety of media. His perspective comes from an early interest in anthropology and social change. Recent projects include "You are Here" at the Diesel Denim Gallery in Soho; the video artwork "future.surface.(Text)ure" for Art in General - at the 2003 Armory Show; the live video work "Dis-Play", presented at the 10 year anniversary of the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna in November 2002, and at Austrian art institution Magazin 4, in July 2002; Curation of "winter.chill" involving live audio and video artists at New York's apexart for "sans an exhibition", December 2002; Curation of seven video artists in the "Brewster Project 2002"; "Fictive Net Porn" a project involving over 70 contemporary artists, writers, and theorists from around the world creating web based artworks about the issue of pornography on the net, launched at the point art galley in New York in November of 2001, (on line permanently at www.fictive.net/porn); "Fictive Advertising" a two page culture-hack subvertisement in NY ARTS magazine, October 2001. He did set and live video design for David Dorfman's "To Lie Tenderly" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in December, 2000. He also designed the set for the Pulitzer prize winning Broadway Musical Rent. He received a "Municipal Arts Society Times Square Spectacular" Award from Tibor Kalman for his redesign of the marquee and exterior of the Nederlander Theater. He has worked with performance creators including Mabou Mines, and Beth B. at PS122 in New York and Steve Shill at the ICA in London. He received a Bessie award in '91, and an NEA/TCG Fellows grant for '93/94. He served as visual advisor on Tom Noonan's feature film "What Happened Was...", ('94 Grand Jury Prize, Sundance and Silver Hugo Award, Chicago International Film Festival.) He shows photography, new media, and fashion related art work in the underground night scene, alternative gallery spaces, and on line. He is the founder of Fictive (www.fictive.net), and is chair of the Artists Alliance Inc. - a collective of 65 artists based in New York's Lower East Side. He is also Gallery Director for CUCHIFRITOS - AAI's not for profit art gallery/project space - located inside New York City's Essex Street Food Market.

Chantel Foretich is an artist and a fundraiser for New York City Opera. For her artistic practice, she makes small-scale constructions referencing real and literary places - many are animated with electric motors or music-box mechanisms.  Works include shrunken versions of swimming pools, doctor's offices, bridges, and bedrooms, all of which build onto each other and into larger landscapes. Recent group exhibitions include Dorian Grey Gallery in the East Village, Aqua Art Fair in Miami, and Freies Museum in Berlin.  Foretich was born in Mississippi but now lives and works in New York.  She received her M.F.A. in Photography from the University of South Florida in 1997 and a
B.S. in Journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1991.

Felicity Hogan is a British artist and curator, and is currently Executive Director of Artists Alliance Inc, a non-profit organization that runs both a residency program and an exhibition space, Cuchifritos, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Additionally, Ms. Hogan is a program officer at New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and coordinated NYFA's MARK Program for visual artists in New York State and was one of the co-ordinators for NYFA’s Artist as Entrepreneur Boot Camps. Her recent curatorial projects include “Word-Less,” at EFA project space, New York;  “Structured Simplicity,” at Dumbo Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY; “All is one, one is all” at the Free Store, NY, organized by Double A Projects. Ms. Hogan was Development & Curatorial Associate for the Tuning Exhibition, "The 21st Century, The Feminine Century, and The Century of Diversity and Hope," curated by Heng-Gil Han, at the Incheon Women Artists' Biennale in Korea, 2009. Hogan’s artworks have been shown in the US and internationally. She has recently exhibited at the Arlington Arts Center, VA and Susan Berko-Conde Gallery/E.M. Berko Archive, Chelsea, NY, 2010. A commissioned painting was included in José Ruiz's artwork, The Progression of Influence, 2009, a collaborative installation for the exhibition Shifting Constructs, 2009 Grants & Commissions Program, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL, that traveled to Periferico Caracas / Arte Contemporaneo, Venezula, 2010. Ms. Hogan received her BFA in Fine Art at Coventry University and MFA in Fine Art (printmaking) at Camberwell College of Fine Arts, London, UK.

Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria lives and works in New York City since 2001. He has devoted himself to the development of the artist run not-for-profit Flux Factory, worked as assistant director of the International Residency Program at Location One, and is currently director and co-founder of Residency Unlimited. After completing a preparatory year at the Academie Julien (Paris, France) in 1997, Sebastien received a BFA from the Ecole de Beaux-Arts de Montpellier District (Montpellier, France) in 2001. The primary focus of his practice is collaboration through a variety of practices and mediums. He has produced works of sound/video installation, performance, dance, film, as well as photography, painting and illustration. He has participated in group projects with Flux Factory at the Queens Museum of Arts, the New Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park. He also collaborated with artist/filmmaker Marie Losier, both in front or behind the camera. His latest collaborative endaevor was a video performance with artists Joro Boro and fellow inaugural resident Paul Clay, taking place at the 2011 Staten Island Lumen Film Festival, (June 2011).

Amber Hawk Swanson is a video and performance artist living and working in Brooklyn and Chicago. Also an arts worker, she is Director of Community Engagement and Partnerships at OtherPeoplesPixels. Formerly Officer, NYFA Source and Instructor, NYFA MARK at New York Foundation for the Arts, Amber Hawk Swanson has also held the positions of Host/Producer at Chicago Public Radio's, Vocalo.org and Visual Arts Faculty Member at the Chicago Arts Program of the Associated Colleges Midwest. Recent exhibitions include Locust Projects (solo, Miami), Non Grata Art Container (Estonia), Invisible Dog (Brooklyn), and Georgia State University (Atlanta). Recent residencies include Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (NYC), Woodstock Byrdcliffe (NY), Bolt (Chicago), and Fountainhead (Miami). Recent visiting artist appointments include McGill University (Montreal), East Carolina University (Greenville, NC), Hunter College (NYC), and Fashion Institute of Technology, FIT (NYC). Her work is included in the permanent and MPP collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography and has been profiled and reviewed in Map Magazine, SexTV, The Associated Press, Time Out Chicago, and Flavorpill. Hawk Swanson holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Studio Arts). Notable projects include The Feminism? Project, 2005-2006; Amber Doll, 2006-2008; Fit, 2008-present; and Tilikum, present. 

Beatrice Wolert works between drawing, sculpture and video exploring process, fleeting moments, impermanence, fragments, serendipity, synchronicity, found objects and transformation of materials. She received a BA in Design from Adelphi University, Garden City, NY and an MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. She is a member of the One Stone Collective. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group shows at venues such NurtureArt, Janet Kurtnatowski, Feature Inc., Denise Bibro, HQ, A.I.R. Gallery, Artists Space, d.u.m.b.o art center and EXIT Art in New York; Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL and internationally at the Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Masterton, New Zealand. Wolert is Programs Director at CUE Art Foundation. She grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn where she continues to live and maintain her studio practice.