Meet the Residents: Ajunie Virk, Arielle Knight, Jason Rhee
Friday, April 17, 7 pm ET
In-person at Squeaky Wheel and online
Free or suggested donation; get tickets below
Squeaky Wheel is pleased to present this hybrid artist talk with our Spring 2026 Workspace Residents! Ajunie Virk, Arielle Knight, and Jason Rhee will be presenting on their previous and current projects, along with a Q&A with the residents moderated by curator Ekrem Serdar.
For in-person attendees: The event will take place at Squeaky Wheel. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. Catering from Ali Baba Kebab, with vegetarian options, will be provided.
For online attendees: A private link will be sent to you; the event will be available at the link at the start date and time. You will have access to the event for 24 hours; Squeaky Wheel members receive 72 hour access. Not a member yet? Sign up here.
Accessibility: If you’d like to request ASL interpretation for either in-person or the online viewing, please contact ekrem@squeaky.org by April 2. You can view additional information on Squeaky Wheel’s accessibility information here.
Ajunie Virk will be working on A Foot Off the Windowsill, a feature length experimental film which follows a recovering addict whose fragile first relationship and year of sobriety collide as she scours her house to destroy a shadow she judges to be a cockroach. The roach—an insect often seen as toxic, despite its essential role in ecosystems to break down remnants and waste—enters the character’s pristine home, disrupting their curated world and forcing a reckoning with societal expectation, relinquishment, and authenticity. The film blends the use of 3D animation, green screen performance, and motion capture to highlight the inconsistencies in the personas we build to dodge the shame inherent in pursuing perfection.
Arielle Knight will be working on an installation version of And Counting… a hybrid documentary and fiction film that conveys the fractured experience of “carceral time”. The film follows a mother and her formerly incarcerated son’s journey home, confronting their wounds and their hopes to rebuild their bond. Knight’s approach draws on the power of hybridity not as artifice, but as a means of approaching reality more truthfully. During the residency, the filmmaker will repurpose and recontextualize materials that did not make it into the short film—outtakes, archival footage, and experimental sound pieces—integrating them into an immersive multi-channel environment.
Filmmaker Jason Lee will be working on The Untitled EJ Lee Documentary, an intimate feature-length film that goes beyond basketball to unveil the untold story of Eun Jung “EJ” Lee, a diminutive but powerful figure in the world of women’s basketball. The film tells a basketball story that’s never been told before: a female Asian immigrant in the southern U.S. who reached enormous heights on the biggest stages as a player and attempts to do the same as a coach. Following sports narratives such as Last Chance U, The Heart of The Game, and Hoop Dreams, the film showcases intimate verité footage of EJ and the players on and off the court, the societal issues that they faced, and the historical journey of EJ becoming one of the best basketball players in the world. In a society that tends to worship male sports icons, The Untitled EJ Lee Documentary seeks to inspire young women, girls, members of the AAPI community, older adults, and sports enthusiasts at large, ushering a resilient and awe-inspiring woman into the pantheon of American sports heroes.
Funding for this session of Squeaky Wheel’s Workspace Residency is provided by the Teiger Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Thank you to our friends at Rust Belt Books, Buffalo’s largest used bookstore, for sponsoring this session of the residency. Special thank you to the panelists of this session of the residency, Alicia Hawkins, Donte McFadden, and Joan Nobile. Learn more about the program here.
Biographies of the artists
Ajunie Virk is an Indian-American writer-director and animator whose work investigates the relationship between surveillance, identity, and paranoia in a diasporic middle-America, conjuring up narratives that force viewers to face uncomfortable truths only apparent after objects of nostalgia are stripped of their familiar contexts. An alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University, Virk was an artist-in-residence at Bunker Projects, Brew House Arts, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Yale Norfolk School of Art. A recipient of the Anne Dowden and Samuel Rosenberg awards, she has recently screened works at the Coaxial Art Foundation, Roski Mateo Gallery, and Light Matters Festival, among others.
Director and producer Arielle Knight is an award-winning filmmaker and founder of GoodKnight Films Inc., acclaimed for her innovative storytelling that illuminates untold narratives across the Black diaspora. Working at the intersection of documentary and hybrid forms, her films and collaborations examine how communities navigate social, economic, and embodied precarity. She draws on surreal interpretations of political, social, and domestic realities, blurring boundaries between nonfiction and fantasy to create cinematic spaces of escape and freedom. Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Southern Documentary Fund, Catapult Film Fund, and the Ford Foundation, among others. Through intimate, personal narratives, Knight continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary cinema with a vision rooted in Black futurity, imagination, and experimentation.
Jason Rhee (Director/Producer/Cinematographer) is a Korean American filmmaker with a passion for telling stories centered around his childhood and the AAPI community. Jason spent a decade in comedy prior to working on his feature film at institutions like The Onion and Conan. With a background in screenwriting and comedy, he helped produce three one- woman shows with comedian Kellye Howard, including directing a sold-out run at the Steppenwolf Theater as part of its 2022 LookOut series. Jason recently served as a cinematographer for PBS WTTW’s Firsthand webseries on migrants, unhoused Chicagoans, and peacekeepers.
