Queer|Art Reveals 2025 Mentors

Queer|Art, the national organization connecting and uplifting generations of LGBTQ+ artists, has announced the new Mentors for the 2025 Queer|Art|Mentorship (QAM) program cycle. The Mentorship program is the cornerstone of Queer|Art’s work, providing a platform of support for LGBTQ+ artists focused on creative issues and long-term sustainability of artistic practice. Now in its 14th year, the organization’s celebrated year-long creative and professional development program supports both remote and in-person participation between early-career and established LGBTQ+ artists from across the country. In doing so, Queer|Art|Mentorship bridges professional and social thresholds that often isolate artists by generation, discipline, and region.

The national cohort of 2025 Mentors are based variously across the country. Queer|Art proudly welcomes six new Mentors to the program: interdisciplinary and conceptual artist Ken Gonzales-Day, writer and transformative justice worker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (The Future is Disabled), actor and writer Erin Markey, sculptor and performance artist Young Joon Kwak, director and screenwriter Andrew Ahn (Fire Island), and film & media consultant Tabitha Jackson. Joining them are five returning Mentors: fiber artist Liz Collins, author Stacy Szymaszek (Journal of Ugly Sites and Other Journals), interdisciplinary visual artist Chitra Ganesh, bestselling author Alexander Chee (The Queen of the Night), director and screenwriter Frédéric Tcheng (Invisible Beauty); as well as a previous Fellow turned Mentor: interdisciplinary choreographer Raja Feather Kelly.

Applications are open through July 31st. Learn more at www.queer-art.org/mentorship 

Image credits | Top row, left to right: 1. Andrew Ahn, image by Janice Chung; 2. Alexander Chee, courtesy of the artist; 3. Liz Collins, courtesy of the artist; 4. Raja Feather Kelly, courtesy of the artist. Middle row, left to right: 1. Chitra Ganesh, image by Ally Caple; 2. Ken Gonzales-Day, courtesy of the artist; 3. Tabitha Jackson, courtesy of the artist; 4. Young Joon Kwak, courtesy of the artist. Bottom row, left to right: 1. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, courtesy of the artist; 2. Erin Markey, image by Allison Orenstein; 3. Stacy Szymaszek, courtesy of the artist; 4. Frédéric Tcheng, courtesy of the artist.

The 2025 Queer|Art|Mentorship Mentors by Field

FILM

Andrew Ahn / LA (Filmmaker, screenwriter; Fire Island (2022); Driveways (2019); Spa Night (2016))

Tabitha Jackson / NY (Film & Media Consultant, Former Director of Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker; Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge (2005), The First Movie (2009))

Frédéric Tcheng / NY (Filmmaker, screenwriter; Invisible Beauty (2023), Halston (2019), Dior and I (2015), Diana Vreeland: the Eye Has to Travel (2011)) 

LITERATURE

Alexander Chee / NY (Author, editor, professor; The Best American Essays (2022), How To Write An Autobiographical Novel(2018), The Queen of the Night (2016), Edinburgh (2001))

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha / PA (Writer, educator, engineer of disability & transformative justice work; The Future Is Disabled (2022), Beyond Survival (2020), Tonguebreaker (2019), Care Work (2018), Dirty River (2015))

Stacy Szymaszek / NY (Author and poet; Famous Hermits (2023), The Pasolini Book (2022), A Year From Today (2018), Journal of Ugly Sites and Other Journals (2016), hart island (2015))

PERFORMANCE

Raja Feather Kelly / NJ (Choreographer, performance artist, Founder & Artistic Director of the feath3r theory; The Fires, SoHo Rep (2024); The Absolute Future, NYU Skirball (2023))

Young Joon Kwak / LA (Performance artist, sculptor, musician; founder of Mutant Salon; Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living, Hammer Museum (2023); Resistance Pleasure, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2024))

Erin Markey / NY (Actor, writer, composer; Boner Killer, The Public Theater (2017); A Ride On The Irish Cream, Abrons Arts Center (2016); Singlet, Bushwick Starr (2018))

VISUAL ART

Liz Collins / NY (Multimedia visual artist represented by Candice Madey Gallery; Foreigners Everywhere, 60th Venice Biennale (2024); Liz Collins: Mischief, Touchstones Rochdale (2022); Energy Field, Tang Museum (2017))

Chitra Ganesh / NY (Interdisciplinary visual artist; Nightswimmers, Hales Gallery (2021); A city will share her secrets if you know how to ask, Leslie Lohman Museum (2020); The Scorpion Gesture, Rubin Museum of Art (2018); Eyes of Time, Brooklyn Museum (2014))

Ken Gonzales-Day / LA (Interdisciplinary visual artist, educator; Ken Gonzales-Day, Claremont Lewis Museum of Art (2023); Sharing Space, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles (2022); Lynching in the West: 1850-1935, Duke University Press, (2006))

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