Micro-Artist in Residence 2022 Recipients!
Info | Open call (closed) | 2022 Recipients
Solar Power for Artists is excited to announce the recipients of our micro-artist residency.
Ash Arder
Bio
Ash Arder is a transdisciplinary artist whose research-based approach works to expose, deconstruct or reconfigure physical and conceptual systems – especially those related to ecology and/or industry. Ash manipulates physical and virtual environments to explore mark making, mechanical portraiture and sound design as tools for complicating dynamics of power between humans, machines and the lands they occupy.
Project Description
Whoop House is a completely solar-powered sound sculpture that records and plays back instruments and voices of community members. The mobile sculpture will include a solar energy micro-grid designed to power popular musical equipment like keyboards, turntables, microphones, and speakers. Whoop House hopes to expose Detroiters – specifically Black and brown residents on the lower east side – to solar power as a realistic option for surviving in neighborhoods impacted by frequent power outages due to failing infrastructure and heavy flooding. Along with exposure, neighbors will leave Whoop House gatherings with tangible tools and connections for building their own small-scale solar energy grids. This increases agency in responding to individual crises (power outages and shut offs) and harm reduction for climate change (learning about reducing carbon footprint).
Sherwin Banfield
Bio
Sherwin Banfield is a Queens, NY based mixed-media artist with recent work attempting to explore journeys of identity and ancestry. Sherwin's creative practice tends to deconstruct the imaginative and physical journey of identity within his preferred subject matter, the human experience. While exploring the journey of his subject, he would seek to draw a connection between their personal stories and established culture, frequently imposing mythological and imaginative ideas as accessories within his sculptures.
His portrait busts and figurative works are expressions of mood meant to draw out the inner identity of his subjects. Accompanying each sculptured identity are accessories of light, sound and/or cultural references that hyper realize this identity to compliment the organic design of their facial, skull and anatomical structure. The goal is to create a projection of attitude and aura within his sculpted figures.
Recent projects build upon experimental ideas of encompassing various mixed materials with traditional sculpture; lighting, sound and solar power that he refers to as Sustainable Sonic Sculpture. His recent public sculpture “Going back to the Meadows’ fused the identity of Queens Hip-Hop Legend LL Cool J, with his musical legacy into a sonic monument. The intention is to showcase multi-dimensional contributions by Hip-Hop Legends, as Sculptural Monuments.
Sherwin holds a BFA from Parsons School of Design with honors, continued his studies in Fine Art Sculpture at the Art Student’s League of New York while showcasing his work in multiple group shows. He is a recent recipient of the Queens Council on the Arts Queens Art Fund Grant, Artport Residency, the Socrates Annual Emerging Artist Fellowship, the Fantasy Fund Fellowship at Modern Art Foundry and the Art Student’s League of New York Model to Monument Fellowship.
Project Description
Sonic Hip Hop Public sculpture that will use sustainable energy (solar panels) to supply power to built-in lighting and audio systems.
Fereshteh Toosi
Bio
Fereshteh Toosi designs experiences that pose questions and foster animistic connections through encounter, exchange, and sensory inquiry. Their artwork often involves documentary processes, oral history, and archival research. Immersive performances are produced in conjunction with small sculptures, short films, installations, scores, and poetry, often situated outdoors. Fereshteh lives and works in El Portal, Florida on stolen lands still stewarded by the Miccosukee and Seminole people, and previously by the Calusa, Taino, and Tequesta tribal bands. Find examples of Fereshteh's work at http://fereshteh.net
Project Description
A mobile solar-powered audio streambox to broadcast the sounds of south Florida with a focus on climate sentiments and tracing displacement.
