Squeaky Wheel announces Spring 2019 Workspace Residents

Contact: Ekrem Serdar (ekrem@squeaky.org)

[January 11, 2019: Buffalo, NY] Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center is pleased to announce its Workspace Residents for Spring 2019. This March we will welcome three residents for a two week period during which the artists will be given time and resources to develop works-in-progress and new projects. The residency will provide artists Alison Nguyen (New York, NY) and LIZN’BOW (aka Liz Ferrer & Bow Tie, Miami, FL) with a stipend, travel and housing support, along with tailored access to equipment, technical consultations, and facilities at Squeaky Wheel.

During their residency, Nguyen will be working on a multi-channel installation work titled every dog has its day, which explores notions of iconicity, immortality, and terror in consumer-produced media.  Drawing from home movies, social media, soft pornography, and videos created by religious cults/extremists, the appropriative work explores the porous visual relationships between domestic intimacy, terror and technology. Meanwhile, LIZN’BOW will be working on A Children’s Book, a media and print children’s book project made with youth participants, exploring identity, gender, feminism, and alternative forms of capital.

The public will have the opportunity to engage with the residents on two occasions. On March 13th, 6–8pm, Alison Nguyen will be leading a Master Class titled The Conflicted Image, where participants will explore strategies of critique, homage, voyeurism, parody, deconstruction, and fragmentation used in appropriative found footage works, as well as exploring these techniques to create their own works. Concluding their residency on March 22nd at 7pm, Alison Nguyen and LIZN’BOW will take part in Workspace Presentations, where the artists will be speaking about and showcasing their work.

Residents will connect with local art and cultural communities by participating in one-on-one critique sessions, studio visits, site visits, and activities that engage Buffalo’s local history, as well as current initiatives led by community groups around the city. Residents benefit from the opportunity to publicly share and receive feedback for their work. Our artists and researchers will be invited to a variety of site visits and activities exploring Buffalo’s unique communities and histories.

The Spring 2019 residency was juried by Caroline Doherty, Ineil Quaran, and Maiko Tanaka. Biographies of the residents, and of the jury can be found below.

About the program

Workspace Residency is a unique artist residency which supports local, regional and national media artists and researchers who are working on projects in film, video, audio, interactive media and emerging technologies in any stage of production. Founded in 2016 by Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center in Buffalo, New York, in collaboration with local partners Buffalo Game Space, The Foundry, and Silo City, the residency provides support through equipment, facilities, and technical support for artists experimenting across a range of old and new technologies, such as video, sound, digital platforms, interactivity, virtual reality, and 3D printing. Community outreach and public engagement components include presentation and education activities. The residency takes place twice a year, with sessions taking place in March and April. More information about the residency, including a list of previous residents, can be found here.

Workspace Residency is made possible with generous support from the County of Erie and County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, individual members, businesses, and supporters.

Resident Bios

Alison Nguyen is a New York-based artist working in video and installation. She received her B.A from Brown University, Providence, RI. Nguyen’s work has been screened at Ann Arbor Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Crossroads presented by SF Cinematheque/SF MoMA, San Diego Underground Film Festival, Microscope Gallery, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Leeds International Film Festival, Unseen Film Festival, L’Alternativa, Marfa Film Festival, San Francisco Art Book Fair at Minnesota Street Projects, Traverse Vidéo, Palace Film Festival, Outpost Artists, and Zumzeig Cine. Her work has been exhibited at Centre Des Arts Actuels Skol, The University of Oklahoma, BOSI Contemporary, and Satellite Art Show, Miami. She has participated in group performances at The Whitney Museum of Art: Dreamlands Expanded, The Parrish Museum, and Mana Contemporary (in collaboration with Optipus). Nguyen has received residencies and fellowships from the International Studio & Curatorial Program, The Institute of Electronic Arts, BRIC, Signal Culture, and Vermont Studio Center. She has been awarded grants from NYSCA and The New York Community Trust.  

LIZN’BOW is a project in which Liz Ferrer and Bow Tie use media technology, digital tools, and community building exercises as vehicles to visualize, play, and explore different social and creative possibilities. The artists start most of their pieces in a workshop setting. Our workshops focus on providing space for people to form nuanced and expanded ideas of identity, representation, power, and possibility. They usually choose a mainstream cultural format as starting point then deconstruct and experiment from there. LIZN’BOW have worked with The Bass Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Breakthrough Miami, Hands to Help, La Sierra Artist Residency Columbia, Tempest Projects, Cunsthaus, Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, En Residencia at the Koubek Center, Borscht Film Festival, and Mana Contemporary Miami.

Spring 2019 Workspace Jury Bios

Caroline Doherty is an artist and educator based in Buffalo, NY. She employs multiple mediums, including sculpture, performance, video, and public projects. Residencies include the Squeaky Wheel Workspace Residency in Buffalo, the SOMA Summer Program in México City, the ArtPark Working Artist Residency Program in Lewiston, NY, and Guapamacátaro Center for Art and Ecology in Michoacán, México. Recent projects include a permanent outdoor sculpture series at ArtPark, and exhibitions and performances at Indigo Gallery in Buffalo, In/Future at Ontario Place in Toronto, Tsinghua University in Beijing, the Chongjiang Contemporary Art Museum in Chongqing, and CEPA Gallery in Buffalo. Caroline has been an educator for over 15 years, designing and facilitating artmaking programs, workshops, and courses for youth, university students, and adults in formal and informal settings in the US, Mexico, and Canada.

Ineil Quaran is an afro-futurist multidisciplinary artist and ghetto organizer born in Buffalo, NY and raised in the Kenfield/Langfield Projects. Through his fine art and multimedia collages he recreates memories and dreamscapes incorporating themes of self-preservation, Black celebration, imagination, and grief. He developed his skill by blocking-out neighborhood sidewalks with chalk drawings and studying digital tutorials. Institutionally he attended Buffalo Academy of Visual Performing Arts and briefly, Villa Maria College majoring in animation. Growing up Ineil indulged in: Walt Disney animations, climbing trees, the epics of ancient religions and folklore, anime, early 2000’s hip hop and R&B, science fiction adventure, and his gullah/geechee heritage.
In 2014 he co-owned, graphic design business and zine distributor, VENT. Soon after in 2015 he co-founded D.O.P.E. Collective (Dismantling Oppressive Patterns for Empowerment), a Black youth-led anti-oppressive arts organization that aims to strengthen  local resources for creative and exploited communities which resists through art forms and arts movements considered: white-washed, extreme, stigmatized, political, and/or experimental. Ineil Quaran is now developing work for his first solo art show and is continuing to cultivate resources supporting the East Side, melaninated creatives, and all the black and brown *QTs!
*QT = queer and trans people

Maiko Tanaka is the Executive Director of Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center.