Queer|Art Announces 2017-18 Fellowship Recipients

Queer|Art, the New York-based nonprofit for supporting LGBTQ artists, has just announced the eleven Fellows accepted for the 2017-2018 Queer|Art|Mentorship program cycle, and the Mentors with whom they will be working:

Justin Allen with Mentor, Che Gossett (Literature)
Eames Armstrong with Mentor, Margaret Ewing (Curatorial Practice)
David Antonio Cruz with Mentor, Neil Goldberg (Visual Art)
Marco DaSilva with Mentor, Liz Collins (Visual Art)
Federica Gianni with Mentor, Rose Troche (Film)
Lucas Habte with Mentor, Frédéric Tcheng (Film)
Ryan Haddad with Mentor, Moe Angelos (Performance)
Lamya Haq with Mentor, Naomi Jackson (Literature)
Jarrett Key with Mentor, David Thomson (Performance)
Madsen Minax with Mentor, Kimberly Reed (Film)
Zoe Schlacter with Mentor, C. Finley (Visual Art)

Details about the projects they will be working on during this year's program cycle are provided below.

Now in its seventh year, Queer|Art|Mentorship has nurtured the creative and professional development of over 100 artists and propelled the careers of a new generation of creators. The year-long program pairs emerging and established LGBTQ artists across five distinct fields-Film, Literature, Performance, Visual Art, and Curatorial Practice-and culminates with a public exhibition that showcases 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. Working against a natural segregation between generations and disciplines, Queer|Art|Mentorship supports exchange between artists working in and across various media and at all levels of their careers.

The 2016-2017 Queer|Art|Mentorship Annual Exhibition, for the outgoing class of Fellows, will be held at the Leslie-Lohman Price Street Project Space (127-B Prince St., New York, NY) from October 13-15, 2017. The Annual includes a weekend of screenings, readings, and performances, and a gallery exhibition, featuring new work by the 2016-2017 Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellows: Chris Blue, Anna Campbell, Ashton Cooper, Emily U. Hashimoto, Heather Lynn Johnson, Jamal T. Lewis, Jordan A. Martin, Rodrigo Moreira, Christina Quintana (CQ), and Virgil B/G Taylor. There is an opening with public reception on Friday, October 13th from 6-8pm. This night will also include the launch of a limited-edition publication produced in conjunction with the show, with contributions from all participating artists. A special program of screenings, performances, and readings will follow on Saturday, October 14th from 7-9pm. Visiting hours are from 12pm-5pm, Saturday and Sunday. More info about the Annual can be found here.

For more information about this and past years' Fellows and Mentors, visit the program's website at Queer|Art.

About the 2017-2018 Queer|Art|Mentorship Fellows and Their Projects

Justin Allen (Literature) is a writer and performer from Northern Virginia. Allen will be working with Mentor, writer and archivist Che Gossett on composing a collection of sci-fi poems about a United States of America after Reparations.

Eames Armstrong (Curatorial Practice) is an artist and curator who works with noise, interdisciplinary experimental performance, and queer theory. Armstrong will be working with Mentor, curator Margaret Ewing on "Grimoire," a curatorial project that considers performance scores alongside texts for spell casting.

David Antonio Cruz (Visual Art) received a BFA in painting at Pratt Institute and an MFA from Yale University. Cruz will be working with Mentor, visual artist Neil Goldberg to develop and expand on a series of drawings and an operatic performance based on ethnographic photographs and the Black Diaries by the British consul and Irish Nationalist Roger Casement.

Marco DaSilva (Visual Art) is a native New Yorker whose symbol-based paintings explore hybridity through the intersections of his Brazilian-American, queer identity and manic experience. DaSilva will be working with Mentor, artist and designer Liz Collins on a sculptural series that explores the manic experience through notions of dreams of grandeur, opulence, and excess across different socioeconomic perspectives.

Federica Gianni (Film) is an Italian filmmaker based in New York. Gianni will be working with Mentor, filmmaker Rose Troche on a queer coming of age story about first love, family, and addiction set in a Pasolinian beach town in the outskirts of Rome.

Lucas Habte (Film) is an Ethiopian-American filmmaker living in New York City. Habte will be working with Mentor, filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng on an autobiographical documentary feature detailing the story of his romantic relationship with a young man in Addis Ababa before and after he flees homophobic threats to become France's first LGBT refugee from Ethiopia.

Ryan J. Haddad (Performance) is an actor, writer, and autobiographical performer based in New York. Haddad will be working with Mentor, performer/writer Moe Angelos on a play that willexplore the significance of intergenerational gay mentorship and a family's evolution over thirty years through the story of Charlie, Haddad's eccentric gay uncle who loves theater and happens to be a dentist.

Lamya Haq (Literature) is a queer Muslim writer living in New York City. Haq will be working with Mentor, author Naomi Jackson on a memoir about being a queer brown Muslim immigrant woman in the United States.

Jarret Key (Performance) is a performer from rural Alabama who attendEd Brown University. Key will be working with Mentor, performer/creator David Thomson on a series of performance installations (hair paintings) reimagining the rituals, narratives, and legacy of his grandmother, Ruth Mae "Polka Dot" Giles.

Madsen Minax (Film) makes films, videos, and multi-disciplinary projects inspired by the collective and individual politics of belonging, and considers where fantasy, desire and embodiment interfere. Minax will be working with Mentor, filmmaker Kimberly Reed on a feature length hybrid documentary film, which traces the story of his nieces unexplained death, his brother-in-law's false incarceration for her murder, and how his family's turn to Mormonism poses conflicts for his transgender identity.

Zoe Schlacter (Visual Art) is an interdisciplinary artist and designer living and working in Brooklyn. Schlacter will be working with Mentor, artist and curator C. Finley to construct a wardrobe for a drag king alter ego character, exploring the potential for a wardrobe to act as an alternative archive of gender and self-expression.

For more information about Queer|Art|Mentorship and this year's Fellows and Mentors please visit our website at: www.queer-art.org/mentorship

About Queer|Art

Queer|Art is a New York City non-profit arts organization that was launched in 2009 to support a generation of LGBTQ artists who lost mentors to the AIDS Crisis of the 1980s. By fostering the confident expression of LGBTQ artists' perspectives, stories, and identities across disciplines and generations, Queer|Art supports and empowers a population that has been historically suppressed, disenfranchised, and often overlooked by traditional institutional and economic support systems. Programs are organized under three major areas of support: PRACTICE (Creative and Professional Development); PRESENTS (Events, Exhibitions, and Special Presentations); and AWARDS (Residencies, Grants, and Prizes). Each of these areas of support operate across four fields of creative practice: Film, Literature, Performance, and Visual Art.

The current programs of Queer|Art include: Queer|Art|Mentorship, Queer|Art|Film. and Queer|Art|Awards. The Queer|Art|Mentorship program, launched in 2010, pairs emerging and established LGBTQ artists in a year-long exchange and has propelled the careers of a new generation of creators. Queer|Art|Film, now in its eighth year at the IFC Center in New York, is a monthly screening series that provides a space for invited LBGTQ artists to honor the films that have inspired them, further charting a uniquely queer cultural lineage through cinema to other artistic disciplines. Queer|Art|Awards is a new program of grants, prizes, and awards that provides various kinds of direct support-monetary and otherwise-to LGBTQ artists; it kicks off this year with the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant and the introduction of the Queer|Art|Prize.

A list of the intergenerational community of artists supported and brought together by Queer|Art includes: Silas Howard, Jennie Livingston, Matt Wolf, Hilton Als, Sarah Schulman, Pamela Sneed, Justin VivIan Bond, Jibz Cameron, Trajal Harrell, John Kelly, Caden Manson, Everett Quinton, Geo Wyeth, Angela Dufresne, Nicole Eisenman, Avram Finkelstein, Chitra Ganesh, Pati Hertling, Jonathan Katz, Reina Gossett, Sasha Wortzel, Jess Barbagallo, Morgan Bassichis, Monstah Black, Yve Laris Cohen, iele paloumpis, Rebecca Patek, Justin Sayre, Colin Self, Justine Williams, Michael De Angelis, Jacolby Satterwhite, Rick Herron, and Hugh Ryan, among many others.

Website: www.queer-art.org
Twitter: @queerartnyc
Instagram: @queerart
Facebook: @queerartnyc