A.K. Burns / Brooklyn, New York

A.K. Burns is currently at work on a cycle of five video-installations that take speculative fiction as a point of departure. The first, A Smeary Spot (2015) debuted at Participant Inc., NY. As artist-in-residence at the New Museum, Burns debuted the second installation, Living Room (2017), as part of the Spring 2017 Research & Development Season. And as of summer 2017 she was developing a third video installation, commissioned by EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. She was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University in 2016-17, and a recipient of a 2015 Creative Capital Foundation Visual Arts Award. Her work can be found in public collations, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She co-founded Working Artists in the Great Economy (W.A.G.E.) in 2008 and remains an advocate for labor issues in the arts. Additionally she co-edited Randy, an annual trans-feminist arts magazine from 2010-2013. The video Community Action Center (2010, a collaboration with A.L. Steiner) screened at numerous venues internationally including the Tate Modern, London and The Museum of Modern Art.

Adriana Martinez / Bogota, Colombia

“The core of my practice relates to the context and issues that I am exposed to and my interest in a growing and shared experimentation of the everyday. My work enables me to understand and negotiate the reality and politics that surround me, by looking for symbolic ways to react and represent them. I approach different conditions such as global economy, trade and information.  My process often involves writing instead of sketching. Traditional techniques and finding a signature visual style are not fundamental for my practice. The plastic properties that are most frequent in my work are repetition, hoarding, annulment, insertion and the hyperbole. I use iconography and popular symbols to comment and track the global proliferation of those very images. These elements become the essence of which I appropriate and revolt to, through a process of resinifying, relocating and reformulating; a personal translation of an individual experience of a common language.”

Cally Spooner / London, United Kingdom

Born in 1983, Cally Spooner is an event maker and a writer operating in a space where references to books, theoretical treatises, films, pop songs or talk shows find arrangements in unsynced forms: live productions, film installations, choreography, sound, as well as fiction, readings and scripts. Arriving from a training in Philosophy and landing somewhere between stable, formal compositions and ongoing, unresolved activity, her work prods and makes restless the hierarchies between those who hold power to manage bodies and thought, and those who do not. She lives and works in Athens and London. Her most recent solo shows include The New Museum (New York) and The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), both in 2016. Her recent group shows include Serpentine Gallery in 2017, and the Geneva Moving Image Biennial in 2016 – 17. Her book of Scripts was published by Slimvolume in 2016, and her novel Collapsing In Parts was published by Mousse in 2012.

Dana Awartani / Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Dana Awartani is a Palestinian-Saudi artist born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where she lives and works.   She is furthering her practice in intricate manuscript illumination, parquetry, ceramics, stained glass, miniature painting, and mosaics, and is committed to preserving these skills through the completion of an ‘Ijaza’ certificate – the highest form of recognition and authorisation–to eventually transmit the skill of Islamic illumination.  She exclusively uses materials and pigments she has prepared herself. Her works are absolutely traditional, yet enacted in a contemporary moment. Awartani has exhibited her work in many international exhibitions including Rhizoma at Edge of Arabia, Venice Biennale (2013), Show of Faith at Katara, Qatar (2013),  Art Basel, Hong Kong (2015),  Jeddah Arts (2017),   Institute Arab & Islamic Art, New York (2017),  and at  Franco Noero Gallery in Torino, Italy (2017). She had a solo presentation at Art Basel Hong Kong 2016.  Awartani’s work is in the collection of Sheikh Zayed National Museum, Abu Dhabi, The Farjam Collection, and The British Museum.

Guillaume Leblon / Paris, France

Born in Lille in 1971, Guillaume Leblon lives and works in Paris. He was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2011. Several solo shows have been devoted to his work in France, in particular by the CAC, in Ivry-sur-Seine in 2006; the Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, in 2010; the Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris, in 2011; the Musée de Sérignan in 2012; the IAC, Villeurbanne, in 2014; and abroad at the Kunstverein, Düsseldorf, in 2006; the CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, in 2008; the Mudam, Luxembourg in 2009; the Mass MOCA in 2013; and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, in 2015. Some of the more recent group exhibitions that have featured his work include: the Lyon Biennale in 2011; Pour un art pauvre at the Carré d’Art, Nîmes in 2011-12; the Rennes Biennale in 2012; and Une Histoire at the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 2014-16; L’usage des formes, at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 2015 and Accrochage at Palazzo Grassi in 2016. Upcoming projects include a group show at Roundhouse/DuSable museum in Chicago in the fall, solo shows at Travesia Cuatro and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff in the fall, and SMAK in Gand in 2018.

Harrell Fletcher / Portland, Oregon

Harrel Fletcher received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from the California College of the Arts. He studied organic farming at UCSC and went on to work on a variety of small Community Supported Agriculture farms, which impacted his work as an artist. Fletcher has produced a wide variety of socially engaged collaborative and interdisciplinary projects since the early 1990s. His work has been shown at SF MoMA, the de Young Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Wattis Institute, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area; The Drawing Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Sculpture Center, White Columns, The Wrong Gallery, Apex Art, and Smackmellon in New York; Signal in Malmo, Sweden; Domain de Kerguehennec, and the Matisse Museum in France; The Vancouver Art Gallery and The Power Plant in Canada; The Tate Modern and the Royal College of Art in London; and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, among many other locations. He was a participant in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and the 2012 Shanghai Biennial, among others. Since 2009 he has collaborated with Jens Hoffmann on The People’s Biennial, an ongoing exhibition project devoted to locating and presenting under-acknowledged art and artists from across the US. Fletcher is a Professor at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where he is the director of the MFA in Art and Social Practice, a program he founded in 2007.

Indrė Šerpytytė / Palanga, Lithuania and London, United Kingdom

Born in Palanga, Lithuania, Indrė Šerpytytė is an artist living and working in London. Her recent solo exhibitions include Absence of Experience, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania in 2017, and Pedestal, Parafin Gallery, London in 2016 . Her recent group exhibitions include Invisible Cities at  Wallach Art Gallery, New York in 2017, Still House Group, New York in 2016, Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 at MOMA, New York, and Conflict, Time, Photography at Tate Modern in 2015.

John Riepenhoff / Milwaukee, Wisconsin

John Riepenhoff was born in 1982 in Milwaukee,  where he lives and received a BFA from the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. He is represented by Marlborough Contemporary. Riepenhoff is a curator and co-owner of The Green Gallery (also in Milwaukee). He is a  co-organizer of Milwaukee International and Dark Fairs, an inventor of artistic platforms for the expression of others, and a regular food ideator. His recent exhibitions and curatorial projects have been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Marlborough Chelsea, and Swiss Institute, all in New York; the Tate Modern in London; Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Akansas; 356 Mission Rd in  Los Angeles; and elsewhere. He also continues a program of the John Riepenhoff Experience at various locations around the world, most recently at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, and Misako and Rosen, Tokyo. He was the 2015 Milwaukee Arts Board Artist of the Year. He founded Milwaukee’s first Beer Endowment for artist-run organizations.

Juan Araujo / Caracas, Venezuela

Juan Araujo lives and work in Caracas, Venezuela, where he was born in 1971. He has had  solo exhibitions  at Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Italy) in 2015; at  Stephen Friedman Gallery (London) in 2013; at Centro de Arte Contemporánea (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) in 2012; and at Galeria Luisa Strina (São Paulo, Brazil) in 2010; and elsewhere. He has also been a participant in many group shows, including at  Deutsche Bank, Berlin, Germany; Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon;  The Jewish Museum, New York;  Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, and  Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit.

Lin Ke / Beijing, China

Born in 1984 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China, Lin Ke graduated in 2008 from the New Media Arts department of the China Academy of Fine Arts. In 2010 he began making a series of works associated with computer video and images. Lin Ke uses the computer as a studio, extracting material from the Internet, as well as operating behaviors and  images recorded via screenshots and screen recording software. In 2014, his first solo exhibition —L in K–was held in Gallery Yang Beijing. In recent years his achievements include winning the 2014 OCAT – Pierre Huber Art Prize; the 2015 AAC art of the Chinese Youth Artist Award; and being shortlisted in the BMW Art Journey Awards in 2017. Lin Ke is a member of the art group Double Fly Art Center.

Sean Connelly

Born on O’ahu and raised around Kona and Ko’olaupoko, Sean Connelly is a Pacific Islander, designer and creative producer. He is also an architect, artist, urbanist, and educator. He holds a Doctorate of Architecture from the University of Hawai‘i and a Master in Design in Landscape, Urbanism, and Ecology from Harvard University (with concentrations in Real Estate Development, City Making and Urban Economics).  Sean is the author and producer of Hawai’i Futures, a virtual intervention for island urbanism. The project is often referenced as an education tool in curriculum around Hawai‘i and beyond, including the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Sean’s work also includes the sculptures A Small Area of Land for ii Gallery, and Land Division for the Honolulu Museum of Art. Forthcoming projects include an installation for the Honolulu Biennial, an installation for Contact Hawai’i, a new-media project named HI-Atlas, a publication titled Hydraulic Islands, and a collaboration with OMA on a publication about architecture and global food systems. He states, “My commitment to the pedagogy and practice of design is informed by my humble role as an accomplice in environmental, social, political, racial, and cultural justice and change. As one who could identify as a lower-middle class queer person of color (my mother is brown and my father white) I believe in an approach to collaboration that is achieved through active vulnerability, listening, learning, and allied action.”