QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP supports a year-long exchange between emerging and established artists in four different creative fields: Film, Literature, Performance, and Visual Art.

• The Queer|Art|Mentorship program nurtures exchange between LGBTQ+ artists at all levels of their careers and works against a natural division between generations and disciplines.

• Fellows apply with a specific project they would like to work on during the program and meet with their Mentors monthly to discuss their progress.

• Fellows also meet each month as a group to work through important issues shaping their creative and professional development in a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment.

• The program begins in January and ends in October, with the QAM Annual opening in November and continuing through the end of the calendar year.

2025 QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP PROGRAM CYCLE

Queer|Art is pleased to announce the twelve Fellows accepted for the 2025 Queer|Art|Mentorship program cycle, and the Mentors with whom they will be working:

FILM
Yash Zhang with Mentor, Frédéric Tcheng
Saudade Toxosi with Mentor, Tabitha Jackson
Jovan James with Mentor, Andrew Ahn

LITERATURE
Lee Painter-Kim with Mentor, Alexander Chee
Ray Levy Uyeda with Mentor, Stacy Szymaszek
MK Thekkumkattil with Mentor, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

PERFORMANCE
AZ Espinoza with Mentor, Raja Feather Kelly
Sungjae Lee with Mentor, Young Joon Kwak
Reed Rushes with Mentor, Erin Markey

VISUAL ART
Nathan Storey with Mentor, Ken Gonzales-Day
Francheska Alcantara with Mentor, Liz Collins
Ridikkuluz with Mentor, Chitra Ganesh

Now in its 14th year, the organization’s celebrated year-long creative and professional development program expands nationally, supporting both remote and in-person participation between early-career and established LGBTQ+ artists from across the country. In expanding nationally, Queer|Art|Mentorship bridges professional and social thresholds that often isolate artists by generation, discipline, and region. The 2025 cohort is made up of Mentors and Fellows participating across seven states: New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Alaska, and Georgia.

The program supports a year-long exchange between emerging and established LGBTQ+ artists across four distinct fields—Film, Literature, Performance, and Visual Art. Fellows apply with a specific project they would like to work on during the program and meet each month with their Mentors to discuss their progress in the lead-up to this event. Fellows also meet each month as a group to learn from and provide support for one another throughout the year.

Details about the projects each Fellow will be working on are provided below.

2025 FELLOWS & MENTORS

Yifei "Yash" Zhang (he/they) is a Chinese filmmaker and artist whose work explores queerness, fluidity, mental health, and futurity. Under the guidance of Mentor Frédéric Tcheng, he will reconnect with his divorced mother on a train journey through their hometown to revive their shared family traumas, years of depression experiences, and gender struggles that have long silenced them.

Saudade Toxosi (she/ze) is a psycho-spiritual visual artist engaged in a meditative process of selecting and organizing found images that articulate her thoughts about the “new indigenous african'' experience in the United States. She will work with Mentor Tabitha Jackson on a documentary experimental film told by nature and spatial environments that surrounded the families and neighborhoods of missing and murdered children in Atlanta.

Jovan Avery James (he/him) is a Los Angeles-based African-American writer, director, and producer born and raised in Baltimore, MD. He will work with Mentor Andrew Ahn on a coming-of-age feature film following a working-class Black, queer man whose desire to leave his small town and follow his big city artistic dreams is threatened by his perilous family ties and a lack of confidence.

Lee Painter-Kim (they/them) is a multidisciplinary writer and cultural producer with a background in cultural studies, art history, and English literature. Exploring queer biracial Korean American identity through the artist’s family's history and the GyoDong dokkaebi market, they will work with Mentor Alexander Chee to examine the cultural dynamics of US-ROK relations and highlight the intersection of commerce and demilitarization.

Ray Levy Uyeda (any pronouns) is a poet, writer, photographer and amateur archivist based in the Bay Area, CA. Working with Mentor Stacy Szymaszek, they will develop their debut collection of poetry, Against Infinity, which explores queer eco poetics, climate change, kinship, memory, documentation, and (self) identification.

M. K. Thekkumkattil (they/them) is a trans disabled writer and nurse. They will work with Mentor Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha on an essay collection exploring the complexities, tensions, and systemic failures within Critical Care nursing as a microcosm of the medical industrial complex at large, while also envisioning care work futures.

AZ Espinoza (they/them) is an afro-futurist- trans-masculine-feminist making magic through theatre. With the help of Mentor Raja Feather Kelly, they will create an adaptive confrontation of King Lear, in which Cord(elia) must survive a world where his aging hotelier father thinks he’s a daughter not a son, and a catastrophic hurricane is headed straight to their family’s island resort.

SUNGJAE LEE (he/they) is a Seoul-born, Chicago-based visual artist, educator, and writer whose practice centers around the visibility and varied representations of queer Asians. He will work with Mentor Young Joon Kwak on a performance-based video installation of chest hair transplanting services between himself and white men, exploring themes of Christian rituals, racialized human labor, and liberation of queer Asian bodies.

Reed Rushes (they/them) is a British-American performance artist living and working in Queens, NY. With Mentor Erin Markey, they will create a multimedia queer ensemble performance that delves into the fantasy world of their drag king persona, Stan. Using drag, choreography and video the performance will disrupt notions of interiority and exteriority manifesting instead a psychological dream state.

Nathan Storey (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist between Southern California and Colorado working in photography, installation, and printmaking. With Mentor Ken Gonzales-Day, he will be developing an artist-run, experimental press, platform, and project space for historically underrepresented visual artists who explore, cultivate, and expand queer print culture.

Francheska Alcántara (they/them) is a queer Afro-Caribbean interdisciplinary artist raised by a village of people in community and based in The Bronx, NY. They will work with Mentor Liz Collins on a series of concrete- and soap-casted brown paper bag sculptures, collaged with artifacts from railroad and subway tracks from places the artist has lived.

RIDIKKULUZ (any pronouns) is a Palestinian, Egyptian, and Jordanian multidisciplinary artist from New York City. They will work with Mentor Chitra Ganesh on a series of sculptures and paintings that amplifies Queer Palestinian Resistance while exploring themes of grief and liberation.

ABOUT

Mission

QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP was founded to develop an intergenerational and interdisciplinary network of support and shared knowledge for LGBTQ+ artists. The program nurtures exchange between artists at all levels of their careers, working against a social separation between generations and disciplines.

Structure

The program is a year in length. Fellows in Film, Performance, Literature, and Visual Art apply with a specific project they would like to work on during the program. Proposing a project is a way for Fellows to introduce themselves to Mentors, and working on that project in dialogue with a Mentor is a way to focus the development of the relationship. Keeping Queer|Art|Mentorship project-based also provides a manner by which to assess, and modify if necessary, the program’s long-term effectiveness in facilitating and supporting the actual creation of new work.

The program is largely driven by the unique character of each Mentor/Fellow pairing, organized through individual monthly meetings. Fellows also meet each month as a group in an environment that provides an opportunity for sharing ideas across disciplines and gathering further support among peers. The entire group of Mentor/Fellow pairs also convenes for two dinners throughout the cycle, hosted by Queer|Art. Throughout the year, Queer|Art staff engage in an ongoing dialogue with the Mentors and Fellows in an effort to ensure that the program best serves its participants. Further opportunities for ongoing career education and development will be sought out as the unique needs of each group of Fellows are assessed.

History & Context

Queer|Art|Mentorship was born of a need to address the lack of support for queer content in a variety of cultural sectors and the scarcity of examples of sustainable careers for LGBTQ+ artists. A sensitivity to the absence of mentors who would have emerged from the generation most strongly affected by AIDS is also a palpable and driving force behind the program. The program launched in 2011.

Queer|Art|Mentorship aims to expand the perceived value of queer work and cultivate a collection of voices that amplify queer artistic experience. The program does not expect any kind of specific content in terms of artists’ work or how queerness manifests within and around it.

Who should apply?

Artists must be working at a generative level within at least one of the following fields:

• Film
• Literature
• Performance
• Visual Art

Queer|Art|Mentorship is for artists who are:

• Self-identified as queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, and/or intersex
• Based in the United States, including US territories
• Early-career and professionally focused, with a body of work already behind them
• Not currently enrolled in school or university
• And have a specific project they’d like to work on with a Mentor during their Mentorship cycle.

Most importantly, we are looking for artists who have an extraordinary potential for engagement in queer and artistic communities and would gain from, and add to, interaction with others.

Each Mentor chooses the Fellow they will be working with during the program. We encourage Mentors to look for artists who stand to receive maximum benefit from the resources of the program and bring diverse experiences and perspectives to the Queer|Art community.

What is the timeframe?

Applications will reopen in 2025!

APPLY

*APPLICATIONS FOR QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP WILL REOPEN IN 2025*

1) Submit Intent to Apply

Before you can receive the application you must submit a simple Intention to Apply. All that is required for this form is your name, email address, and the field(s) you are applying in. Once submitted you will receive an email automatically with a link to complete the application process. 

2) Complete Application Due 2025, date to be announced

After completing the Intent to Apply you will be emailed a link to submit required application materials through an online application form on Slideroom.

3) Acceptance

Mentors convene in September with Queer|Art staff to review applications and make selections as a group for inviting applicants to participate in the program. This year, the program will accept 12 Fellows, with 3 Fellows in each field. All applicants will be notified as to the status of their application by October 2025.

4) Duration

The program cycle is 10 months, beginning in January 2026.

Questions?

Please carefully review our Frequently Asked Questions before contacting us with questions about the program or application process. Thank you!

PAST FELLOWS & MENTORS

2024 Fellows & Mentors

• Shuli Huang — Ira Sachs (Film)

• Hazel Katz — Stephen Winter (Film)

• Kelindah bee Schuster — Kate Bornstein (Literature⁣⁣)

• Grace Byron — Jackie Ess (Literature⁣⁣)

• Katherine Bahena-Benitez — Eva Yaa Asantewaa (Performance)

• X. Lee — M. Lamar (Performance)

• Oscar Diaz — Demian DinéYazhi ́ (Visual Art)

• Christopher Paul Jordan — Avram Finkelstein (Visual Art)

2023 Fellows & Mentors

• Catching On Thieves — Lilly Wachowski (Film)

• Miranda Haymon — Zackary Drucker (Film)

• Zefyr Lisowski — T. Fleischmann (Literature⁣⁣)

• Nora Sharp — Will Davis (Performance)

• Lu Yim — Julie Tolentino (Performance)

• Miller Robinson — Jeffrey Gibson (Visual Art⁣⁣)

• Kearra Amaya Gopee — Constantina Zavitsanos (Visual Art)

• Demetri Burke — Camilo Godoy (Visual Art)

2022 Fellows & Mentors

• Frances Arpaia — Angelo Madsen Minax (Film)

• Joie Lou Shakur — Silas Howard & Ira Sachs (Film)

• Xoai Pham — Tourmaline (Film)

• JL Akagi — Torrey Peters (Literature)

• Clarissa Brooks — Saeed Jones (Literature)

• Kei Kaimana — Alexis De Veaux (Literature)

• jose esteban abad — Will Rawls (Performance)

• Mariam Bazeed — Morgan Bassichis (Performance)

• Anh Vo — Julie Tolentino (Performance)

• Antonius-Tin Bui — Lola Flash (Visual Art)

• Utē Petit — Jeffrey Gibson (Visual Art)

• agustine zegers — Constantina Zavitsanos (Visual Art)

2020-2021 Fellows & Mentors

• Brian Alarcon — Jaime Manrique (Literature)

• Erica Cardwell — Pamela Sneed (Literature)

• April Freely — Saeed Jones (Literature)

• Mev Luna — Angelo Madsen Minax (Film)

• Jeffrey Meris — Carlos Motta (Visual Art)

• Nyala Moon — Rodrigo Bellott (Film)

• jess pretty — Morgan Bassichis (Performance)

• Nandita Raman —Maia Cruz Palileo (Visual Art)

• Eva Reign — Tourmaline (Film)

• SJ Swilley — Maria Bauman Morales (Performance)

2019-2020 Fellows & Mentors

• Maia Chao — Yve Laris Cohen (Visual Art)

• Brian Gonzalez — Rodrigo Bellott (Film)

• Raja Feather Kelly — Kate Bornstein (Literature)

• Patrick G. Lee — Hao Wu (Film)

• María José Maldonado — Charles Rice-Gonzalez (Literature)

• Felicita “Felli” Maynard — Lola Flash (Visual Art)

• Olaiya Olayemi — Maria Bauman-Morales (Performance)

• Anthony Rosado — Thomas Lax (Curatorial Practice)

• Sarah Sanders — Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (Performance)

• Sarah Zapata — Gayatri Gopinath (Literature) 

2018-2019 Fellows & Mentors

• J. Bouey — David Thomson (Performance)

• Daniel Chew — Frédéric Tcheng (Film)

• Xandra Clark — Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (Performance)

• Sarah Mihara Creagen — Neil Goldberg (Visual Art)

• Cristóbal Guerra — Charles Rice-González (Literature)

• Candystore — C. Finley (Visual Art)

• Russell Perkins — Nancy Brooks Brody (Visual Art)

• Ripley Soprano — Che Gossett (Literature)

• Trace Tsui — Elisabeth Subrin (Film)

• Jeanne Vaccaro — Nelson Santos (Curatorial Practice)

2017-2018 Fellows & Mentors

• Justin Allen -- Che Gossett (Literature)

• Eames Armstrong -- Margaret Ewing (Curatorial Practice)

• David Antonio Cruz -- Neil Goldberg (Visual Art)

• Marco DaSilva -- Liz Collins (Visual Art)

• Federica Gianni -- Rose Troche (Film)

• Lucas Habte -- Frédéric Tcheng (Film)

• Ryan Haddad -- Moe Angelos (Performance)

• Lamya Haq -- Naomi Jackson (Literature)

• Jarrett Key -- David Thomson (Performance)

• Angelo Madsen Minax -- Kimberly Reed (Film)

• Zander Schlacter -- C. Finley (Visual Art)

2016-2017 Fellows & Mentors

• Chris Blue -- Kimberly Mayhorn (Film)

• Anna Campbell -- Liz Collins (Visual Art)

• Ashton Cooper -- Margaret Ewing (Curatorial Practice)

• Emily U. Hashimoto -- Sarah Schulman (Literature)

• Heather Lynn Johnson -- Pamela Sneed (Literature)

• Fatima Jamal -- Stephen Winter (Film)

• Jordan A. Martin -- Arthur Aviles (Performance)

• Rodrigo Moreira -- Avram Finkelstein (Visual Art)

• Christina Quintana (CQ) -- Moe Angelos (Performance)

• Virgil B/G Taylor -- Carrie Yamaoka (Visual Art)

2015-2016 Fellows & Mentors

• Rodrigo Bellott -- Silas Howard (Film)

• Monstah Black -- Arthur Aviles (Performance)

• Wells Chandler -- Angela Dufresne (Visual Art)

• Erin Greenwell -- Stacie Passon (Film)

• Doron Langberg -- Avram Finkelstein (Visual Art)

• Jacob Matkov -- Jaime Manrique (Literature)

• Mylo Mendez -- Thomas Allen Harris (Film)

• Eva Peskin & Justine Williams -- Talvin Wilks (Performance)

• Hugh Ryan -- Shannon Michael Cane (Curatorial Practice)

• Brendan Williams-Childs -- Sarah Schulman (Literature)

2014-2015 Fellows & Mentors

• Morgan Bassichis -- Jibz Cameron aka “Dynasty Handbag” (Performance)

• Arisleyda Dilone -- Yoruba Richen (Film)

• Zachary Frater -- Bradford Nordeen (Curatorial Practice)

• Shannon Keating -- Celeste Lecesne (Literature)

• Luce Capco Lincoln -- Thomas Allen Harris (Film)

• Samantha Nye -- Carrie Moyer (Visual Art)

• Maia Cruz Palileo -- Chitra Ganesh (Visual Art)

• Rebecca Patek -- Caden Manson (Performance)

• Grey Vild -- Stacy Szymaszek (Literature)

• Steven Wilsey -- Stacie Passon (Film)

2013-2014 Fellows & Mentors

• Seyi Adebanjo -- Yoruba Richen (Film)

• Ella Boureau -- Moe Angelos (Performance)

• Bridget de Gersigny -- Carlos Motta (Visual Art)

• Goodw.y.n -- Jaime Manrique (Literature)

• Rick Herron -- Pati Hertling (Curatorial Practice)

• Peter Knegt -- Celeste Lecesne (Literature)

• Natalia Leite -- Rose Troche (Film)

• Troy Michie -- Geoff Chadsey (Visual Art)

• Colin Self and Lain Kay -- Caden Manson (Performance)

• Xeňa Stanislavovna Semjonová -- Geo Wyeth (Performance)

2012-2013 Fellows & Mentors

• Kyle Coniglio -- Geoff Chadsey (Visual Art)

• Michael De Angelis -- Dan Hurlin (Performance)

• Kerry Downey -- Angela Dufresne (Visual Art)

• Thomas Dozol -- Billy Miller (Curatorial Practice)

• Camilo Godoy -- Carlos Motta (Visual Art)

• Tourmaline and Sasha Wortzel -- Kimberly Reed (Film)

• Ryan Henneberry -- Sarah Schulman (Literature)

• Melissa Li -- Moe Angelos (Performance)

• Ricky Maldonado -- Stacy Szymaszek (Literature)

• iele paloumpis -- Trajal Harrell (Performance)

• Lauren Wolkstein -- Rose Troche (Film)

2011-2012 Fellows & Mentors

• Hima B -- Matt Wolf (Film)

• Jess Barbagallo -- Stacy Szymaszek (Literature)

• Yve Laris Cohen -- Justin Vivian Bond (Performance)

• Pilar Gallego -- Nicole Eisenman (Visual Art)

• Pati Hertling -- Hilton Als (Literature)

• Darren Jones -- Jonathan David Katz (Curatorial Practice)

• Saeed Jones -- Sarah Schulman (Literature)

• Xavi Marrades -- Barbara Hammer (Film)

• Edward McDonald -- Jennie Livingston (Film)

• Tommy Pico -- Pamela Sneed (Literature)

• Harrison Rivers -- John Kelly (Performance)

• Guadalupe Rosales -- Louise Fishman (Visual Art)

• Jacolby Satterwhite -- Angela Dufresne (Visual Art)

• Justin Sayre -- Everett Quinton (Performance)

• Aldrin Valdez -- Deborah Kass (Visual Art)

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