INTRODUCING THE 2020-2021 QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP FELLOWS
Queer|Art, New York City’s home for the creative and professional development of LGBTQ+ artists, is pleased to announce the ten Fellows accepted for the 2020-2021 Queer|Art|Mentorship program cycle, and the Mentors with whom they will be working:
Brian Alarcon with Mentor, Jaime Manrique (Literature)
Erica Cardwell with Mentor, Pamela Sneed (Literature)
April Freely with Mentor, Saeed Jones (Literature)
Mev Luna with Mentor, Angelo Madsen Minax (Film)
Jeffrey Meris with Mentor, Carlos Motta (Visual Art)
Nyala Moon with Mentor, Rodrigo Bellott (Film)
jess pretty with Mentor, Morgan Bassichis (Performance)
Nandita Raman with Mentor, Maia Cruz Palileo (Visual Art)
Eva Reign with Mentor, Tourmaline (Film)
Surya Swilley with Mentor, Maria Bauman Morales (Performance)
Now in its tenth year, Queer|Art|Mentorship’s 2020-2021 cohort of Fellows were selected by their Mentors from a pool of over 320 applicants—a record high, making this year’s application cycle the program’s most competitive to date.
For the last decade, Queer|Art|Mentorship has nurtured the creative and professional development of over 160 artists and propelled the careers of a new generation of creators. Alumni of the program include: Camilo Godoy, Ryan J. Haddad, Saeed Jones, Jeanne Vaccaro, Geo Wyeth, Tourmaline, Sasha Wortzel, Jess Barbagallo, Morgan Bassichis, Monstah Black, Yve Laris Cohen, Troy Michie, Tommy Pico, Justin Sayre, Colin Self, Jacolby Satterwhite, Guadalupe Rosales, and Hugh Ryan, among many others.
The program supports a year-long exchange between emerging and established LGBTQ+ artists across four distinct fields—Film, Literature, Performance, and Visual Art—and culminates with a public exhibition (known as the Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual) that presents work produced by Fellows during their Mentorship. 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.
The 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual exhibition, featuring new work by the outgoing class of Fellows will open on October 29. Combining both digital components and public interventions throughout New York City, the sprawling exhibition includes a virtual gallery with game-like installations, extending into the public realm via window altars, wheatpasted posters, performances, live screenings, and tours. The exhibition is organized by Queer|Art and curated this year under the title ARCANUM by outgoing Fellow Anthonywash.Rosado, with new works of film, literature, performance, and visual art by: Brian Gonzalez, Patrick G. Lee, María José Maldonado, Felli Maynard, Olaiya Olayemi, Sarah Sanders, and Sarah Zapata.
The 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual Exhibition kicks off with a virtual opening reception on Zoom on Thursday, October 29 from 8-11pm EST, hosted by graduating QAM Fellow Raja Feather Kelly and style icon Andre J. The evening will feature artist-led tours of the digital gallery, an artist panel, performances, and an after party with rousing DJ sets from DJ Monday Blue and Adam R. RSVP is required, visit the Queer|Art website for details.
ABOUT THE 2020-2021 QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP FELLOWS AND THEIR PROJECTS
Brian Alarcon (Literature) is a multimedia writer, working with poetry across a variety of art forms. Alarcon will be working with Mentor, Jaime Manrique on a recorded series of "songs" to create a poetry-album that pushes the boundaries of language, rhythm, and what can be considered music.
Erica Cardwell (Literature) is a Black queer writer, critic, and educator. Cardwell will be working with Mentor, Pamela Sneed on a manuscript titled WRONG IS NOT MY NAME, a collection of essays about hysterical constructions of Blackness in art and visual culture.
April Freely (Literature) is a poet and essayist from Cleveland, Ohio. Freely will be working with Mentor, Saeed Jones on a poetry manuscript about illness as a queering of the body, centering the roles and interactions of Black women in the US healthcare system.
Mev Luna (Film) is an interdisciplinary artist with a research-based practice. Luna will be working with Mentor, Angelo Madsen Minax to expand their project, Digital Deliverance: White Saviorism and the Screen, with a video-essay evaluating the enthusiasm of the private technology sector to mediate human-to-human contact within the prison industrial complex.
Jeffrey Meris (Visual Art) is an artist born in Haiti and raised in the Bahamas. Meris will be working with Mentor, Carlos Motta to develop the Institute of Self Care, a queer and trans, Black and brown centered space where working class people can relax, unwind, and be taken care of while learning to take care of themselves.
Nyala Moon (Film) is an actor, writer, and filmmaker of trans experience. Moon will be working with Mentor, Rodrigo Bellott, on a semi-autobiographical feature film set in New York City about a Black transgender teenager who decides to fight back against a system that wants to destroy her and her community.
jess pretty (Performance) is a performer on a quest for pleasure that transcends time and the spaces she claims to reside in. pretty will be working with Mentor, Morgan Bassichis on dream[e]scapes, a research-based performance project with which she interrogates the methodologies of living past survival by moving towards a critical desire of want and asks “what the world would look like if it was made for me.”
Nandita Raman (Visual Art) is from Benaras, India and works with a range of mediums including photography, video, drawing and language. Raman will be working with Mentor, Maia Cruz Palileo on Body Is A Situation, a work that re-looks at the city of Varanasi, India to examine tropes of representation in the colonial gaze while relying on the body for awareness of place, culture, politics, and history.
Eva Reign (Film) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and actor originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Reign will be working with Mentor, Tourmaline on a feature film about a Black trans woman from a small Midwestern town unlearning old ways of survival through guidance from a new group of creative and unapologetic Black transfeminine friends.
Surya Swilley (Performance) is a native of Charlotte, North Carolina. Swilley will be working with Mentor, Maria Bauman Morales to develop a performance incorporating elements of film, text, and dance that investigates the historical undercurrent surrounding sex, death, and protest in the United States.