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.

2023 QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP PROGRAM CYCLE

Queer|Art is pleased to announce the eight Fellows accepted for the 2023 Queer|Art|Mentorship program cycle, and the Mentors with whom they will be working:

FILM
Catching On Thieves with Mentor, Lilly Wachowski (Film)
Miranda Haymon with Mentor, Zackary Drucker (Film)

LITERATURE
Zefyr Lisowski with Mentor, T. Fleischmann (Literature⁣⁣)

PERFORMANCE
Nora Sharp with Mentor, Will Davis (Performance)
Lu Yim with Mentor, Julie Tolentino (Performance)

VISUAL ART
Miller Robinson with Mentor, Jeffrey Gibson (Visual Art⁣⁣)
Kearra Amaya Gopee with Mentor, Constantina Zavitsanos (Visual Art)
Demetri Burke with Mentor, Camilo Godoy (Visual Art)

Now in its 12th year, the organization’s celebrated year-long creative and professional development program expands nationally for the first time, 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 2023 cohort is made up of Mentors and Fellows participating across five states: California, New York, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

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.

2023 FELLOWS & MENTORS

Catching On Thieves (she/her) is a multimedia artist who creates to both understand what is to be & to stay alive. With Mentor Lilly Wachowski, she will be working on a Kafka-esque feature film called Convenient Lies about a suicidal therapist, as well as a comic about West Philly's LGBTQIA+ scene.

Miranda Haymon (she/they) is a Princess Grace Award winning writer, director, and curator currently developing several projects in theatre, opera, podcasts, and film. They will work with Mentor Zackary Drucker on Queer Sibs, a documentary and performance project developed out of the artist's relationship with their older gay brother, investigating how social allyship intersects with family bonds.

Zefyr Lisowski (she/they) is a trans disabled poet and multidisciplinary artist exploring sex, griefwork, and the complexity of queer love under various systems of oppression. They will be working with Mentor T. Fleischmann to develop Ghostdaughter, a book of hybrid poem-essays about inherited grief, familial violence, and the artist's late sister.

Nora Sharp (they/them) is a creator, performer, and filmmaker who uses world-building narrative, interpersonal curiosity, and movement improvisation to draw attention to queer and trans people’s unfolding relationships with themselves and each other. With Mentor Will Davis, they will be working on a DIY reality TV show about dancemaking and a solo performance that channels imagined extraterrestrial understandings of queerness.

Lu Yim (they/them) is a choreographer, teacher and poet whose work is influenced by community care practices. They will work with Mentor Julie Tolentino on a performance made to uplift the meaning of care work and reveal complex bodily experiences associated with healing, through embodiment practices.

Miller Robinson (they/them, it/itself) is a trans, 2Spirit artist of mixed Karuk, Yurok, and European descent, focusing on themes of transfiguration, storytelling, care, and the passage of non-linear timelines. With Mentor Jeffrey Gibson, they will be working on a creation story of self that takes the form of a suit transformed through fire and a performance-based video bridging synaptic learning mechanisms with healing relations to land and language.

Kearra Amaya Gopee (they/them) is an anti-disciplinary artist working across video, sculpture, sound, and writing, paired with Mentor Constantina Zavitsanos. They will be developing original sin, a bio-mythographic, multi-channel video work that ruminates on Caribbean judicial hauntologies made flesh via their relationship with their paternal family, ancestral sin, and the circumstances of their own birth in Miami, FL in the 1990s.

Demetri Burke (he/him) is an emerging artist residing in Atlanta, GA. Through the use of painting and installation, he will be working with Mentor Camilo Godoy to connect the past with the present; and the myth-making of childhood with the realities of adulthood in hopes of capturing the mundane and the spectacular through a Black southern lens.

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 open: June 1st, 2023
Application deadline: July 31st, 2023
Program duration: January - October 2024 (10 months)

APPLY

*APPLICATIONS FOR QUEER|ART|MENTORSHIP WILL REOPEN IN 2023*

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 July 31st, 2023

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 10 Fellows, with 3 Fellows in Visual art and Performance, and 2 Fellows in Film and Literature. All applicants will be notified as to the status of their application by October 2022.

4) Duration

The program cycle is 10 months, beginning in January 2024.

Questions?

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

PAST FELLOWS & MENTORS

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)

• Surya 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 -- James 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 -- James 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)

Is your name listed incorrectly on this page? CLICK HERE to update it.