Queer | Art, a New York-based nonprofit, has revealed the eight fellows who will participate in its Queer | Art | Mentorship (QAM) 2023 and named the eight mentors they will work with. The year-long program, established in 2011, aims to break down the barriers of age, discipline and geography that often divide artists, and instead fosters remote and in-person interaction between emerging and established LGBTQ+ artists from around the world. all over the United States. This year’s participants are scattered across five states: California, New York, Illinois, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
This year in the field of visual arts, Queer|Art has paired Atlanta painter and installation artist Demetri Burke with mentor Camilo Godoy, who will help him complete a project investigating the transition from childhood to life. adulthood through a Black Southern lens. Miami-born “anti-disciplinary” artist Kearra Amaya Gopee will work with mentor Constantina Zavitsanos to create a multi-channel video examining the relationship between Caribbean forensic haunts and their own patrilineal heritage, while Miller Robinson, a trans artist and Karuk two-spirit, Yurok, and of European descent, will team up with mentor Jeffrey Gibson to work on a “story of self-creation that takes the form of a suit transformed by fire” and a video based on the performance on the theme of synaptic learning and healing.
In the discipline of filmmaking, Miranda Haymon will work with mentor Zackary Drucker to direct a documentary and performance-based film titled Gay brothers, focusing on the artist’s relationship with his older gay brother and his social alliance in general. Catching On Thieves will get help from mentor Lilly Wachowski on a movie about a suicidal therapist and a comic about the LGBTQIA+ scene in West Philadelphia.
In the realm of performance, Nora Sharp will team up with mentor Will Davis to create a DIY TV show about creating dance and to do a solo performance channeling “imagined alien understandings of queerness, while Lu Yim sings. will associate with mentor Julie Tolentino, who will help them achieve a performance centered around the issues of care and healing.
Finally, in the field of literature, the transhandicapped poet and multidisciplinary artist Zefyr Lisowski will be supervised by T. Fleischmann, who will help them develop ghost girla collection of hybrid essay-poems inspired by Lisowski’s late sister and domestic violence.
Among the 179 artists to date who have received support from QAM are Raja Feather Kelly, Geo Wyeth, Tourmaline, Jess Barbagallo, Morgan Bassichis, Camillo Godoy, Yve Laris Cohen, Troy Michie and Jacolby Satterwhite. Artists supported by the program have had their work exhibited at institutions such as the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the New Museum, the Queens Museum, the Bronx Museum of Art and the Studio Museum of Harlem; and the Venice Biennale. Additionally, they have seen their work featured at such prestigious events as the Sundance Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. Participants went on to receive scholarships from MacDowell, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Yaddo, among other organizations.
