The Queens Museum’s Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program invites you to a panel on residencies started by artists from the Queens Museum network. Galeria Perdida (What do you know about Chilchota fool?) and Stephano Espinoza (TrueQue Residencia Artistica)  will talk about organizing their residences as artists and facilitators, the reasons for developing spaces for and by artist, and the role that these play in developing networks and creating alternative spaces for artists to organize and create. This conversation will be facilitated by Laurel Ptak (Triangle Arts Association) who will reflect on what it means to run a residency that was started by artists in 1982.

How does the legacy of alternative art spaces connect with the current precarity of artists in New York?

What possibilities are opened up when artists imagine and produce spaces together?

Why start an artist residency (as an artist)?

Why an international artist residency?

How do you fund and make these spaces sustainable?

How do you serve the role of an artist and facilitator?

About Galeria Perdida Galería Perdida was established in Chilchota, Michoacán in 2005. They currently live and work in Brooklyn, NY. Exhibitions include Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles; The MAK Center, Los Angeles; Les Rencontres Internationales, Paris and Berlin; Preface Gallery, Paris;  Casa del Lago, Mexico DF; CUE Art Foundation, New York ; Poprally, MoMA, New York; Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles; Recess Activities, New York and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York. In addition, Galería Perdida hosts an annual artist residency, What do you know about Chilchota, fool? in Michoacán, Mexico.

About WDYKACF? Situated in the rural hills of Michoacan, Mexico, WDYKACF? brings together artists over the course of a summer to focus on individual projects and research. All residents live and work in the same communal household and have no firm agenda. Each individual is tasked with filling their days as they please. We provide space, time and an undefined experience of place, culture, and tradition. Residents decide as to whether to offer public programming; such activities have featured block parties, film screenings, concerts by car, and public installations. Begun in 2005, the residency continues to be defined by its residents and the dynamic of the given year.

About Stephano Espinoza Stephano is an artist and educator from Ecuador. He works as a public programs fellow at the Queens Museum, is a teaching artist for community murals at Groundswell and an educator at the Museum of the Moving Image. In 2015 he co-founded TrueQue Residencia Artistica, was part of the Hemispheric Institute’s emergeNYC residency program for emerging performance artists and NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Program. He has shown at La MaMa Experimental Theatre, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art’s Gallery 128 and NYU’s gallery space, The Commons.  

About TrueQué Residencia Artistica TrueQué is a residency program for emerging artists, activists and cultural/ community organizers that live in or are part of the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora. It seeks to generate a space for creative exploration in which research, the formation of networks and interdisciplinary work are fundamental in the process of art making. Residents participate in a series of activities to guide and enrich their individual and collective creative experimentation. These exercises include resident-artist-led workshops, panels with other artists and cultural organizers and reflective exercises aimed at self-care and collective healing.  

About Laurel Ptak Based in NYC. Working across artistic, curatorial & pedagogical boundaries. I am Director & Curator of Triangle Arts Association, teach at The New School, co-editor of Undoing Property?. Former curator at Tensta Konsthall, Eyebeam fellow, Leading Global Thinker & YBCA 100 awardee.

About Triangle Residency An outgrowth of Artists’ Workshop, Triangle Residency was created in 2002. The residency offers spacious studios for artists to realize large-scale, long-term projects and provides a collegial working environment. Studio residents are chosen yearly based upon a competitive portfolio submission application that is reviewed by a jury of New York based arts professionals and Triangle board members and staff. Each artist’s stay culminates in an Open Studio exhibition to which the general public is invited. Resident artists will also receive studio visits from critics, writers and curators. The next Open Call for applications for sessions in 2015 will be announced in the fall of 2014. Although studio space is provided twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, free of charge, resident artists are responsible for all other expenses including housing, travel, materials and meals. In addition, artists are expected to spend a minimum of 15 hours a week working in their studio or will be asked to leave the program.

About the Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program Open A.I.R. draws on the Queens Museum’s resources, staff expertise, and networks to provide workshops and lectures that help artists grow their practice, advance their career, and develop sustainable lives as artists. Given the Museum’s commitment to socially-engaged art that crosses sectors, as well as attention to its role in neighboring communities, Open A.I.R. works to expand the notion of who is an artist and, moreover, utilizes a holistic view of how to support their potential to thrive and contribute to the cultural landscape of Queens and New York City more broadly. Tailored to artists in the outer boroughs, Open A.I.R. prioritizes the needs of artists of color, queer artists, and immigrant artists, facilitating conversations where art meets activism, and organizing experiences that bring together artists and non-artists.

Open A.I.R. is made possible by a generous grant from The Scherman Foundation’s Katharine S. and Axel G. Rosin Fund. Additional support provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Questions? Email sespinoza@queensmuseum.org

RSVP