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Artists-in-res­i­dence announced for the 2019 – 20 cycle of Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island

Dec 9, 2019 5:28 pm

New York, NY, Decem­ber 9, 2019 – Shan­dak­en Projects is pleased to announce the res­i­dents of the sec­ond sea­son of Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island. Four indi­vid­ual artists and one col­lab­o­ra­tive group, all based in New York City, have been award­ed one year of free stu­dio space on Gov­er­nors Island. As part of their res­i­den­cy with Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island, these cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore and learn about Gov­er­nors Island and cre­ate work respond­ing to its rich his­to­ry, unique eco­log­i­cal frame­work and unpar­al­leled vis­tas. The work of those select­ed spans the dis­ci­plines of poet­ry, dance, per­for­mance, sculp­ture, paint­ing, and more. 

This season’s res­i­dents will include: Zali­ka Azim, Jonathan González, Hei­di Lau with Future Host, Jere­my Sorese, and Coco Young. The res­i­dents announced today were select­ed in part­ner­ship with the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island from a pub­lic open call. Res­i­dents will work on Gov­er­nors Island fall 2019 through fall 2020, and in that time will deep­en their prac­tices while devel­op­ing new work to be pre­sent­ed dur­ing Gov­er­nors Island’s 2020 pub­lic sea­son. These projects, offered each month between May and Sep­tem­ber, will be offered to the island’s hun­dreds of thou­sands of vis­i­tors for free. The works pre­sent­ed will respond to the con­text of the island, as expe­ri­enced by the res­i­dents dur­ing the course of their stay.

“Shan­dak­en is proud to offer free stu­dio space to impor­tant but under-rec­og­nized artists in one of the most expen­sive real estate mar­kets in the world, in part­ner­ship with the Trust,” said Shan­dak­en Projects direc­tor Nicholas Weist, ​“and the free pro­grams cre­at­ed by our res­i­dents will be sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the cul­tur­al land­scape of this his­toric pub­lic site.” 

“Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island’s inau­gur­al year was a huge suc­cess, result­ing in a deeply researched work, new pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships and thought­ful engage­ment with audi­ences,” said Mered­ith John­son, The Trust for Gov­er­nors Island’s VP of Arts & Cul­ture, ​“we are thrilled to wel­come this new group of excep­tion­al artists to the Island, deep­en­ing our ever grow­ing and trail­blaz­ing cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty here at the cen­ter of New York Harbor.” 

Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island com­ple­ments Shandaken’s exten­sive his­to­ry of pro­duc­ing con­text sen­si­tive, process-focused oppor­tu­ni­ties for artists. Shandaken’s pro­grams Shan­dak­en: Storm King (a free res­i­den­cy pro­duced onsite at and in part­ner­ship with the world renowned out­door muse­um Storm King Art Cen­ter) and Paint School (a free edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram host­ed by NYU, The Coop­er Union, The New School, and more) run con­cur­rent­ly with Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island. Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island con­tin­ues Shandaken’s inter­est in sup­port­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion, process, and dia­logue by impor­tant artists, inde­pen­dent from the marketplace. 

A full sched­ule of res­i­dent-led pub­lic pro­gram­ming, as well as a full cal­en­dar of arts and cul­tur­al pro­gram­ming on Gov­er­nors Island for next sum­mer, will be released in spring 2020. 

About the residents:

Zali­ka Azim is a con­cep­tu­al artist based in Brook­lyn, New York. Extend­ing from pho­tog­ra­phy, her prac­tice explores per­son­al and col­lec­tive nar­ra­tives to inves­ti­gate the ways in which mem­o­ry, migra­tion, move­ment, and the body are nego­ti­at­ed across and through­out the African dias­po­ra. Azim’s work has been exhib­it­ed nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly, at venues includ­ing The Dean Col­lec­tion, The Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter of Pho­tog­ra­phy, Dorsky Gallery, 8^th Floor Gallery, Diego Rivera Gallery, the Insti­tu­to Supe­ri­or de Arte and The African Amer­i­can Muse­um in Philadel­phia. She has com­plet­ed solo projects with The Bax­ter Street Cam­era Club of New York and SOHO20. Azim holds a BFA in Pho­tog­ra­phy and Imag­ing from the Tisch School of the Arts and a BA in Social and Cul­tur­al Analy­sis focused in Africana, Gen­der, and Sex­u­al­i­ty stud­ies from New York Uni­ver­si­ty. She has served as a teach­ing artist for Aper­ture Foun­da­tion, the Tisch School of the Art, and The Cen­ter for Court Inno­va­tion at Gavin Brown Gallery in Harlem. Zali­ka has assist­ed cura­to­r­i­al projects and research with The Walther Col­lec­tion, the Pho­tog­ra­phy Depart­ment at MoMA, and has pre­vi­ous­ly served as The Stu­dio Muse­um in Harlem’s Imag­ing and Per­ma­nent Col­lec­tions Asso­ciate. She is cur­rent­ly a cura­to­r­i­al fel­low at NXTHVN in New Haven, CT, and will co-curate their inau­gur­al exhi­bi­tion dur­ing the win­ter of 2020. 

Jonathan González is a NY-based artist work­ing at the inter­sec­tions of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and­col­lab­o­ra­tive prac­tices for per­for­mance, text, sculp­ture, and film. Their work refers to the after­lives of slav­ery through eccen­tric jux­ta­po­si­tions, abstrac­tion, and climate/​planetary con­sid­er­a­tions. Works include: Work­ing on Water in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mario Good­en (Colum­bia School of Archi­tec­ture, 2019), h/​S: Jonathan González in col­lab­o­ra­tion with SB Fuller (CIC­CIO Gallery, 2019), Maroon­age: Elab­o­ra­tions on the Stage and Stay­ing Alive (Con­tact Quar­ter­ly), and Lucifer Land­ing I & II (MoMA PS1 x Abrons Arts Cen­ter, 2019). Cura­tions include Sun­day Ser­vice @ Knock­down Cen­ter and Move­ment Research Fall Fes­ti­val: invis­i­ble mate­r­i­al. An LMCC Work­space Res­i­dent (2018−19), NARS Foun­da­tion AIR (2018), Jerome Foun­da­tion Fel­low (2019), Mertz Gilmore Grantee (2019), Diebold Awardee for Dis­tinc­tion in Chore­og­ra­phy and Per­for­mance (2017), Soul Fire Farm BIPOC Fire (2019), and Bessie-nom­i­nee for Out­stand­ing Pro­duc­tion (ZERO, Dan­space Project, 2018), and Break­out Chore­o­g­ra­ph­er (2019).

Hei­di Lau (in res­i­dence with Future Host) grew up in Macau, and cur­rent­ly lives and works in New York. Lau’s high­ly tex­tured and expres­sive ceram­ic work is mod­eled after tokens of remem­brance — rit­u­al objects, funer­ary mon­u­ments, and fos­silized crea­tures — which are infest­ed, decon­struct­ed, and rebuilt by hand. Recon­fig­ur­ing frag­ment­ed per­son­al and col­lec­tive mem­o­ries, she makes col­lec­tions of sym­bol­ic arti­facts and zoomor­phic ruins as mate­ri­al­iza­tion of the archa­ic and the invis­i­ble, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from colo­nial archi­tec­ture and ten­e­ment hous­es in Macau that have been demol­ished or gen­tri­fied beyond recog­ni­tion. Her work has been exhib­it­ed in local and inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions includ­ing the Muse­um of Arts and Design, New York; the Bronx Muse­um of the Art, New York; the Muse­um of Chi­nese in Amer­i­ca, New York; and the Macau Muse­um of Art. Her prac­tice has been sup­port­ed by numer­ous res­i­den­cies and awards, includ­ing the Emerg­ing Artist Fel­low­ship at Socrates Sculp­ture Park, Low­er Man­hat­tan Cul­tur­al Coun­cil Process Space, the Mar­tin Wong Foun­da­tion Schol­ar­ship, the Joan Mitchell Foun­da­tion Painters and Sculp­tor Grant and the BRIC Colene Brown Art Prize. She cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents Macau at the 58^th Venice Bien­nale. Future Host (Tingy­ing Ma and Kang Kang) is an artist duo search­ing for alter­na­tive forms of sub­sis­tence and resis­tance. They con­sid­er the world as emo­tive and sen­tient that can only be processed through epis­temic inquiries. Espous­ing the per­spec­tive of post-social­ist real­ist emo­tion­al mis­man­age­ment, they write and make per­for­mances with readi­ness and ecstasy. 

Jere­my Sorese (b. 1988, Berlin) is a queer car­toon­ist and painter based out of Brook­lyn, NYC. After grad­u­at­ing with a BFA in Sequen­tial Art from the Savan­nah Col­lege of Art and Design in 2010, he was accept­ed to the La Mai­son des Auteurs, a comics spe­cif­ic res­i­den­cy pro­gram in Angoulême, France, where he lived and worked from 2012 through 2013. His first book, Curve­ball, pub­lished with Nobrow in the fall of 2015, was nom­i­nat­ed for a Lamb­da Lit­er­ary Award. He is cur­rent­ly fin­ish­ing a sequel titled For The Short While to be pub­lished with Archa­ia in 2020. He’s been teach­ing for the past nine years; from Ele­men­tary School chil­dren in Chica­go, to the Mary­land Insti­tute Col­lege of Art, and most recent­ly with Mid­dle School­ers as part of the after school arts pro­gram LeAp at M.S.51 in Park Slope. He’ll be teach­ing at Par­sons School of Design this spring. 

Coco Young (1989) is an artist who lives and works in New York. She was born in NYC and raised in Mar­seille, France. In 2019 she grad­u­at­ed with an MFA from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and holds a BA in Art His­to­ry from the same insti­tu­tion. She works pri­mar­i­ly in sculp­ture, instal­la­tion, and video. Her recent work ques­tions the valid­i­ty of estab­lished lin­ear notions of time and his­to­ry through a fem­i­nist lens. She has had solo pre­sen­ta­tions at Inter­state Projects (Brook­lyn) and Princess (New York), and has exhib­it­ed at Downs & Ross (New York), Times Square Space (New York), the Wal­lach Art Gallery at the Lenfest Cen­ter for the Arts (NY), De School (Ams­ter­dam), and at the Whit­ney Muse­um of Amer­i­can Art (New York). 

Read about the 2018 res­i­dent artists of Shan­dak­en: Gov­er­nors Island here.