New York–based nonprofit Queer|Art has revealed the eight fellows who will be participating in its 2023 Queer|Art|Mentorship (QAM) program, and has named the eight mentors with whom they will be working. The yearlong program, established in 2011, is aimed at breaking down the barriers of age, displicine, and geography that often divide artists, and instead fosters both remote and in-person interaction between emerging and established LGBTQ+ artists from across 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 art, Queer|Art has paired Atlanta-based painter and installation artist Demetri Burke with mentor Camilo Godoy, who will help him to realize a project investigating the passage from childhood to adulthood through a Black Southern lens. Miami-born “anti-disciplinary” artist Kearra Amaya Gopee will work with mentor Constantina Zavitsanos to create a multichannel video examining the relationship between Caribbean judicial hauntologies and their own patrilineal heritage, while Miller Robinson, a trans, two-spirit artist of Karuk, Yurok, and European descent, will team with mentor Jeffrey Gibson to work on a “creation story of self that takes the form of a suit transformed through fire” and a performance-based video themed around synaptic learning and healing.
In the discipline of film, Miranda Haymon will work with mentor Zackary Drucker to realize a documentary and performance-based film called Queer Sibs, focusing on the artist’s relationship with her older gay brother and social allyship in general. Catching On Thieves will receive assistance from mentor Lilly Wachowski on a film about a suicidal therapist, and on a comic about the LGBTQIA+ scene in West Philadelphia.
In the realm of performance, Nora Sharp will team with mentor Will Davis to create a DIY television show about dance making and to realize a solo performance channeling “imagined extraterrestrial understandings of queerness, while Lu Yim will pair off with mentor Julie Tolentino, who will help them accomplish a performance centered around issues of care and healing.
Finally, in the arena of literature trans disabled poet and multidisciplinary artist Zefyr Lisowski will be mentored by T. Fleischmann, who will help them develop Ghostdaughter, a book of hybrid poem-essays inspired by Lisowski’s late sister and by familial 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 seen their works shown at institutions including the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, New Museum, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum of Art, and The Studio Museum of Harlem; and the Venice Biennale. As well, they have seen their work shown at such prestigious events as the Sundance Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. Participants have gone on to receive fellowships from MacDowell, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Yaddo, among other organizations.
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