Participants SOMA Summer 2012
Biographies and images of the SOMA Summer 2012 participants
Ahram Jeong
Ahram Jeong, Staying Alive, 2010, Multi-channel video and sound installation
Artist Ahram Jeong was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA from The Korean National University of Arts, Seoul. In 2010, she attended in The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, and got an MFA from Hunter College, CUNY. In 2011, she had a solo exhibition at Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY, and presented a performance at Regina Rex, Brooklyn, NY. Most recently in 2012, she has been awarded for MacDowell Colony Fellowship, Peterborough, NH, and an artist-in-residency at LMCC Swing Space, The Governors Island, NY. Her interdisciplinary projects create performative scenarios in-between subjects through alterations and transformations of reproduction and media technology.
Anthony Johnson
Anthony Johnson, A fly in a plane, 2010, Inkjet photographic print, Aluminium frame
Anthony Johnson is an Australian artist who explores subtle ways of disrupting our perception of the spaces we occupy. Johnson has a tendency to implicate the self in his work, be it his or yours, in what can often be humiliating yet sincere attempts to reconcile seemingly immeasurable experiences or predicaments.
Contingent moments, points of transition and states of impermanence inform his work. Johnson seeks to activate a complex and often humorous engagement with the everyday; whether it be through reverse parking in a tight space whilst needing to urinate, or sharing a flight with a fly (A fly in a plane, 2010). It is the potential (im)potency of objects and the vacuousness of situations, in tandem with the inverse possibilities of profundity and mundanity of everyday action, that could be seen to drive his practice.
In 2004 Anthony received a New Work grant from the Australia Council and was the recipient of an Australia Council funded studio residency in Los Angeles in 2009. In 2011 he was awarded the Qantas Foundation Contemporary Art Award and has recently completed an MFA at the University of Tasmania. Anthony will participate in the 2012 Soma Summer residency program, before undertaking research-trips through Europe and Asia.
Christina Freeman
Christina Freeman, Plums for Trash, Performance, Mobile Market of International Trash Exchange, Duration: Approximately 665 days and 21,584 miles
Christina Freeman is a New York based artist with an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College, City University of New York and a B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Haverford College. Plums for Trash, Christina’s first solo-show in Europe opened April 19, 2012 at The Red House, Centre for Culture and Debate in Sofia, Bulgaria and was featured on Bulgarian National News.
Christina Houle
Christina Houle, Creation Myth, Prequel to Migration Patterns During Wartime, 2011, video
Christina Sukhgian Houle is an award winning choreographer and visual artist who has toured nationally and performed at Second City Chicago. Her work has been seen extensively throughout the US and this year in Mexico and the Netherlands. She is a 2012 recipient of the Idea Fund and In the fall will begin her MFA in visual arts at Columbia University.
Cristina Ochoa
Claus Spangsberg
Cristobal Gracia
Cristobal Gracia, Mceye (cow
Cristobal Gracia was born in Mexico city (1987) and received his BFA Fine Arts from ¨La Esmeralda¨ National Center of the Arts, Mexico City. He is currently part of SOMA’s full study program (Programa Regular). His work consists mainly of sculpture, installation, drawing and photography. In his work he aims to confront moral codes and social positions through the intervention, alteration of scale and significance of objects and images taken from pop and mass media culture.
Daniel Monroy
Daniel Wilson
Daniel Wilson, T.I.I.O.T.S.L.
Daniel Wilson is a multiple media artist born in Canada. He is currently based in Berlin and New York.
Francesca Du Brock
Francesca Du Brock, Loree Lane, 2012, video
Francesca Du Brock is a multimedia artist originally from Alaska who has lived and worked throughout the United States and Latin America. Her work ranges from painting to drawing, video, and sound and explores concepts related to displacement, homeland, frontier, exile, and memory. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Bowdoin College and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Galeria Perdida/Andres Janacua and Julie Spielman
galería perdida, Foreground: HAVE NO FEAR, 2012, Steel, Vinyl from Zamora, Michoacan, 10 Kilo Copper from Santa Clara de Cobre, Dimensions Variable; Background, Untitled, 2012, C-Print on Opaque Scrim, 48in x 35in
galería perdida is a multi-disciplinary practice established in 2005. Recent exhibitions include La Carne de Burro No Es Transparente at the Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles; Matryoshka at Recess Activities, NY, and the upcoming The New World at the Wignall Museum. They are currently based in Brooklyn, NY.
Irvin Morazan
Irvin Morazan, Taxi! Taxi! Taxi!, 2010, Performance at Art in Odd Places, NY
Born in El Salvador, works/ lives in Brooklyn, New York. Currently attending Hunter College (NY) for a MFA and graduated from the School of Visual Arts (NY) in 2003 with a BFA. Received the Robert Mapplethorpe award for Photography (2003) and in the summer of 2009 attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Solo Shows; DCKT Gallery and Jack the Pelican presents.
Past Group Exhibitions/ Performances include; El Museo del Barrio S-Files Biennial 2011 (Performances in Time Square, Socrates Sculpture Park and Performa 11). Festival of New Ideas (Presented by the New Museum), La Mama Gallery, HVCCA Museum, Asya Geisberg Gallery, Art in Odd Places, Exit Art, Rush Arts Gallery, Bronx River Arts Center, Jersey City Museum, Sean Kelly Gallery, Centro Cultural de España (El Salvador), The Saud Haus (Berlin, Germany), the Caribbean Museum, (Barranquilla, Colombia), MARTE Museum (El Salvador).
Isaac Contreras
Javier Fresneda
Javier Fresneda, STAMINA (Ring of Ruins) II, 2011, Cprint
The work of Javier Fresneda concerns itself with spaces and the construction of narratives with novel iconographic and structural combinations. Interests such as the re-appropriation of landscapes, historical storytelling, the physical experience, and subculture are all present throughout his professional evolution.
His growth as a researcher and producer is tied to models of symbolic negotiation, methodological adaptations, and the development of prototypes generated through working groups.
His projects and installations have been exhibited in spaces as well as at events, such as the AKV St. Joost (The Netherlands); Gallery Weekend (Berlin); CA2M (Madrid); Manifesta, Altes Finanzamt (Berlin); Matadero Madrid; Kunsthaus Bethanien (Berlin); ARCO; JustMadrid; Liste Basel; LaOtra (Bogota, Colombia); and the VentoSul Biennial (Curitiba, Brazil).
Jean Pierre Mot
Jean-Pierre Mot, Jeux & Je- Les échecs selon Mao (Game & Self- Chess according to Mao), 2012, Digital print, Cardboard, Paper, Toothpick
Jean-Pierre Mot is an emerging artist of Cham origin, an ethnic minority of Cambodia, currently living and working in Montreal. He completed a bachelors degree in Visual Arts at the University of Quebec in Montreal in 2009 and is currently finishing a masters degree in communication at the same university. His master’s thesis focuses on the meta-historical representation of the Khmer Rouge through the anthropological imaginary in the communication of the trial of Kaing Guek Eav.
Since 2008 he has worked as an assistant researcher, assistant teacher and lead laboratory assistant at the University of Quebec, under the faculty of Fine Art in the field of robotics and new media. His professional trans-disciplinary activities range from the field of visual arts to research in the field of new media and international relations. His artistic works have been exhibited in Canada, Iceland and the USA; he has also participated in international seminars and workshops related to ethical issues, such as a workshop on human vulnerability sponsored by the UNESCO’s chair of bioethics and human rights in 2012 in Roma.
Joseph Tomas
Joseph Thomas, Untitled (May 1st), 2012, Postcards & Stamps, distributed during May Day march
Joseph Thomas was born in Utah, and he now lives and works in Oakland, California. His makes work using sculpture, photography, performance, writing and collage, often finding content in art history, the history of political movements, and his apartment.
Joshua Jobb
Joshua Jobb, Two ways of working, 2010
Joshua Jobb (Mexico, 1984) is an emerging interdisciplinary artist. In 2008 he started exhibiting internationally, and his recent exhibitions include: Free Art Stand, Winkleman Gallery, SEVEN, Miami, Florida, 2010; BINGO, an international group show curated by Hali Maltsberg at a1 Lab Arts, Knoxville TN, 2011; Chain Letter, Samson Project Gallery, Boston Massachusetts, 2011; EMERGE Art fair 1st edition, in collaboration with Peacock Interventions, Washington D.C., 2011. Exploring the ideas of entertainment, work and consumption, he has been working across media such as drawing, sculpture, photography, installation and video through the exercise of urban wondering, sculptural approaches (actions, gestures, object-interventions, etc…), perceptual relations, language, humor and play.
Kimberly Ruth
Kimberly Ruth is a video artist, photographer and published writer. She has exhibited at the Aideman Arts Center, the Cuneen-Hackett Arts Center, Project 30, Fourth Wall Gallery and the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art. In 2012 her film Gazebo will screen at the Boston Independent Film Festival. Her writing has been published by Pudding House Press, Gold Wake Press and The Del Sol Review. She is the founder, art director and chief editor of Gnome Magazine.
Lakshmi Luthra
Lakshmi Luthra, Dark of the Moon: mlk blvd, 2012, Installation with toilet cover, Livio bar soap, Zest bar soap, water, hot light, Cinefoil
New technologies keep the body at work; code spreads through life, setting desiring energies under the double sign of commerce and competition. In this place, I use technological images to possess everyday objects and environments, reanimating them with daemonic force. The table starts to dance.
I am Assistant Professor of Photography and Media Art at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. I studied philosophy and art prior to receiving an MFA degree from California Institute of the Arts in 2009.
Lois Klassen
Lois Klassen in collaboration with Pierre-Andre Sonolet, Covering Up (2010), street action and window projection
Lois Klassen’s artworks and writings continually combine materialist approaches with social art practices. She uses art processes like textiles, performance, video, book arts, and archiving to consider social relations. Her works are labour intensive and often collaborative. Lois Klassen’s art installations, performance artworks, community events, and media works have been hosted by public galleries, museums, and festivals in Canada, Germany and the UK. She is a past Board Director and President of VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver, Canada. She is educated in Occupational Therapy (University of Manitoba, 1985), Art History (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2008), textile art (Capilano College, 2009) and visual art (Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Master of Applied Art in Visual Art, 2011). She works part-time for the Emily Carr University Research Ethics Board.
Marcela Rico
Originally from Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Her latest work is related to the landscapes in which she grew up and the complex situation of violence that exists in the northwest of Mexico.
María Cerdá Acebrón
María Cerdá Acebrón, Installation
Maya Jeffereis
Maya Jeffereis, Performance
Maya Jeffereis was born in Sun Valley, CA. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing and BA in Classics from University of Washington in Seattle, studied toward a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Performance Art at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is a current MFA candidate at Hunter College in Performance, Video, and Installation. She is a co-founder of the Hunter College MFA Program Digital Media Collective and Purple Jackets Performance Collective. She is a recipient of the 2008 Italo Scanga Scholarship, 2012 Cisneros Award for the SOMA Summer Residency in Mexico City, and the Hunter College Foreign Exchange Program Scholarship for study at Universitat der Kunste in Berlin, Germany. She has performed in Michael Clark’s WHO’S ZOO at the 2012 Whitney Biennial. She lives and works in New York, NY.
Maya Mikelsone
Pamela Calore
Pamela Calore, Border Angels
Pamela Calore is an artist based in San Diego, CA. Using collage, painting, video and installation, her work reflects social and cultural attitudes characteristic of the blending of global societies. Currently, she is focusing on documenting the work of the Border Angels. Her investigation into the transportation industry led her to look into issues related to the effects of NAFTA. Her work has a strong documentary dimension and strives to capture Border Realities through photography and collage.
Rodrigo Marti
Shannon Lyons
Shannon Lyons, 60x60x600x60 (Recorded Durational Sanding Exercise), 2008, HD video stills
Shannon Lyons attempts to visually ‘unpack’ the complex relationships that exist between artistic content and context in her multidisciplinary practice. She continually adapts, draws from and responds to specifically located environments, producing works which directly reference the site where they were made or exhibited. She completed a BA in Art at Curtin University, Perth, WA in 2004, receiving first class honours in 2008. Shannon was the only Australian artist to be selected to participate in the Fondazione Antonio Ratti Advanced Course in Visual Arts in Como, Italy in 2004 and was a visiting scholar to the E’cole Nationale Supérieur d’Art de Dijon (ENSAD) in 2007/08.
Shannon’s work has exhibited in local, national and international group exhibitions including; Surely We Will Be Confused, Ex-Ticosa, Como, Italy (2004); Hatched: National Graduate Show, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, WA (2005); Tracce di un Seminario, Viafarini and c/o, Milan, Italy (2005); Where we’re from the birds sing a pretty song, Rocketart, Newcastle, NSW (2005); Long Distance Relationship, International Art Space Kellerberrin Australia, WA (2007); The Building Show, 399 Wellington Street, Perth, WA (2008); Linden1968, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, St. Kilda, Vic (2008); Rounds, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, WA (2010); Plan A, Breadbox Gallery, Northbridge, WA (2011) and Notices, Sydney Non Objective, Sydney, NSW (2012).
Shannon lives and works in Perth, Western Australia and is currently a PhD candidate and Sessional Academic at Curtin University.
Sonia Hedstrand
Sonia Hedstrand, Still from Ama-san!, 2011, Installation dimensions variable
Sonia Hedstrand is a Swedish video artist, alumn from Whitney Independent Study Program, New York in June 2012. In autumn 2012 she will be artist in resident at Red Gate Residency, Beijing, China. Hedstrand graduated as a Master of Fine Arts at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in June 2011. In 2008-2009 she took two semesters of documentary filmmaking at Birkagårdens folkhögskola, Stockholm.
Hedstrands films and video installations has recently been shown at Charles H Scott Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, at the Eastasian Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, Moderna museet, Stockholm, Loop video art festival in Barcelona, Spain, Athens video art, Greece, Uppsala Short Film Festival, Sweden, Gothenburg Film Festival, Sweden, Tempo Documentary Festival, IWA Biennale in South Korea, CCA Glasgow among others.
Before her career as an artist Hedstrand worked as a freelance journalist, principally for swedish daily paper Dagens Nyheters cultural section, and as a writer for different art magazines and exhibitions catalogues, after having studied literature, film & art history as well as philosophy and art theory at Stockholm University.
Suejeong Ka
Suejeong Ka, Refresh Library, 2009-Ongoing, damaged public library book, glue, news print paper, and other materials
Education
2012 MFA Combined Media, Hunter College, City University of New York
2008 BFA Oriental Painting, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
Tomás Moreno
Tomas Moreno, A Fist Full of Air, 160lbs of shredded currency from the United States Treasury and extra heavy duty gallon trash bags, 8ft x 4ft, 2012
Employing savage conceptualism as his aesthetic, Tomás Moreno creates liminal spaces to side-shift logic and societal norms within cultural systems and structures. He explores everyday utility materials, archives, music, and his personal history to invoke a playful-tragic pathos creating a tension between reality and its shadow. Tomás Moreno’s work attempts to tell a never-ending melodrama of give and take, destruction and creation through time and space asking pedagogical questions of power structures and our understanding of history. He is a multi disciplinary artist born and raised in San Antonio, TX currently living in San Diego, CA. He received his BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2007 and is pursuing his MFA from University California San Diego. His work has been exhibited at the Vincent Price Museum Los Angeles, CA 2011, Orange County Center for Contemporary Arts, CA 2008, Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, Urbana, IL 2008, and he published an essay entitled Human Nature vs Technology on Onestar Press in correlation with Martha Rolser, Nancy Buchanan and Sam Durant entitled ID 517: Special Topics in Art and Politics: A Not So Simple Case for Torture.
Tyler Coburn
Tyler Coburn is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles www.tylercoburn.com
Ulrik López
Ulrik Lopez, Morando el recuerdo, 2009, variable dimensions, installation (tape, black lights)
Ulrik Lopes was born in Mexico City, and has lived in Puerto Rico since 1997. He is currently finishing a BFA in sculpture at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas (EAP) of San Juan, with a minor degree in Industrial Design. He has exhibited at the EAP, the Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, La Respuesta, and alternative spaces across Puerto Rico. He has been published in the puertorrican and New York-based newspaper El Vestíbulo.
Yunyi Yi
Meet me at the Eagle, a part of Installation, customized trophy, 2012
Yunyi Yi was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea and lives and works in New York. She initially studied literature in Creative Writing department at Seoul Institute of the Arts and earned her MFA in 2012 majored in Combined Media at Hunter College in New York. She has performed as a member(synthesizer) of artist collective group in Byul.org since 2002. She incorporates her poetry and music practices into her video, performance and installation, which she considers a similar arrangement of fragmentary elements formed into something ironic or beautiful. She explores the concepts of emotional, cultural, and social failure, and the inability to form a social connection. She has been selected VOX III: annual exhibition of emerging artists at Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia.
www.yiyunyi.com