2022-23 Visual Artist AIRspace Residency cohort. Image by Daqi Fang
Abrons Arts Center's Visual Artist AIRspace Residency annually supports 4 New York City-based visual artists. Visual Artist AIRspace Residents receive an artist fee and a semi-private studio for nine months at Abrons Arts Center. Throughout the residency cycle, studio visits are arranged with critics, curators, artists and other arts professionals to foster critical and professional development. The residency period will culminate in a group exhibition at Artists Alliance Inc (AAI)/Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space.
The application for the 2023-2024 Visual Artist AIRspace Residency is now closed. Next season's application will open Winter 2023. Please keep in touch by signing up for our mailing list HERE.
Questions? Email [email protected]
Niloufar Emamifar lives and works in New York. Her work has been presented at MoMA PS1, New York; Essex Street, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sculpture Center, New York, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, and the Venice Biennale of Architecture among others.
Oji Haynes (b.1999) is a cultural practitioner with a focus in the photographic medium. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has attended The City College of New York in hopes to receive a BFA in Black studies and Studio art as well as completed courses at the International Center of Photography. He has been awarded the CCNY Dean's Prize in Art as well as a recipient of the 2022 NADA Miracle Seltzer Grant prize. He has also participated in the New York Times Portfolio Review and has been shortlisted for the annual Palm* Photo Prize which allowed his work to be included in a group show at 1014 gallery in London. Additionally, his work has been featured in publications such as, Oce Magazine, Feminist, Boooooom, and Nowness.
Cielo Félix-Hernández (b.1998, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto-Rican transdisciplinary artist, living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Working primarily in oil paint, Félix-Hernández depicts figures who author their own narratives, constructed out of familiar Boricua and Caribbean iconographies. Félix-Hernández received her BFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. Recent group exhibitions include Ojos del Perro Azul, Marinaro, New York, NY (2022); Nine Lives, Fortnight Institute, New York, NY (2021); Visions and Nightmares, Simone Subal Gallery, curated by Baseera Khan, New York, NY (2021); Flame Tree, REGULARNORMAL, curated by Bony Ramirez, New York, NY (2021); I’ll Make You Sorry, curated by LaNia Sproles, Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI (2020); documento, Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2020); My Flannel Knickers Sargent's Daughters, New York, NY (2020); and Dynasty, curated by Amy Goldrich, Christopher K. Ho, Omar Lopez-Chahoud, and Sara Reisman at PS122 Gallery, New York, NY (2019). She had her first New York solo exhibition nieta at Sargent’s Daughters in January 2022, which was reviewed by Artnet, Artsy and Platform Art. Félix-Hernández’s first museum group exhibition, DOMESTICANX was on view at El Museo del Barrio (New York, NY) was reviewed by The New Yorker, LATINA, and W Mag, amongst others. Sargent’s Daughters presented a solo booth of new works by Félix-Hernández at NADA Miami 2022. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Silver Arts Projects, New York, NY. She is represented by Sargent’s Daughters.
Alexander Si is a multidisciplinary, project-based artist who’s body of work documents and examines subjects in America popular culture that exposes invisible labor, class and racial disparity, and the sociological consequences of contemporary times. Si’s work has been shown with institutions and galleries like SPACES, Untitled Art Fair, Home Gallery, Chinatown Soup, Tutu Gallery, and Ki Smith Gallery. His artistic and curatorial projects have been reviewed by Art in America, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB, Artnet, and The Art Newspaper.
Abrons’ curatorial focus for our Spring 2024 season is "sanctuary". The 2023–2024 Curatorial AIRspace Resident will curate the Visual Artist AIRspace Exhibition according to this subject.
The word “sanctuary” comes from the Late Latin word “sanctuarium,” which means a sacred place or a shrine. A sanctuary evokes ideas of spirituality and protection yet it also brings forth the idea of a hideaway that suggests an imminent threat.
Abrons Arts Center is a program of Henry Street Settlement, a social services agency with nearly 130 years of experience providing front line support to New Yorkers. Since the founding of our Neighborhood Playhouse in 1915, Abrons has been a space for artists of all ages and stages to experiment with and share new ideas.
Artists Alliance Inc. is an artist-founded and artist-centered non-profit that provides a free and accessible platform to produce, experience, and understand contemporary art in the Lower East Side–a longstanding epicenter for creative experimentation and cultural diversity. AAI fosters forward-thinking and experimental practices of emerging and underrepresented artists and curators with funded residencies and paid exhibition opportunities, and advocates for art-making that challenges how we experience ourselves and our communities.
Abrons Arts Center’s Visual Artist AIRspace Residency program is made possible through the generosity of The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, and the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Artists Alliance Inc. (AAI) is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization located on the Lower East Side of New York City. Programming support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Further exhibition programming is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts. We thank the New York City Economic Development Corporation, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, and individual supporters of Artists Alliance Inc for their continued support. Special thanks go to our team of dedicated volunteers and interns, without whom this program would not be possible.