In Process @ The Watermill Center is our ongoing series of studio visits that invite the community to gain insight into the creative process of our international Artists-in-Residence, cultivating an understanding of how artists from across the globe develop new work.
All attendees must be fully vaccinated, and present proof of vaccination during check-in. For a full list of COVID Safety Regulations, please click here.
About The Artists
Joyce Ho works across diverse mediums from painting, video, to installation. By integrating the deconstruction of movements and fragmentation of daily rituals with rich and illusory light and shadow, the artist demonstrates the intimate and isolating tensions between people and reality. The artist’s works simultaneously captivate her viewers while keeping them in a state of confrontation, rendering the quotidian action depicted in her work as a momentary ritual. Ho has exhibited internationally, including Phantasmapolis: Asian Art Biennial, Taichung, Taiwan (2021); We Do Not Dream Alone: the Asia Society Triennial, Asia Society Museum, New York, NY, U.S.(2021); Yokohama Triennale: Afterglow, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan (2020); Meditations in an Emergency, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2020); Sunset on a Dead End: The Notorious and Their Inexplicable Modes of Existence, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China (2019); NO ON: Joyce Ho Solo Exhibition, TKG+, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2018). Joyce Ho is a recipient of the 2022 Baroness Nina von Maltzahn Fellowship for the Performing Arts at The Watermill Center.
Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976, Plainfield, NJ) is an American conceptual artist working primarily with themes of perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His body of work encompasses video, public art and collaborative installations, sculpture, and photography that inspires reflection on how art informs racial equity and civil rights. The first major retrospective of Thomas’ work, titled Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal…, debuted in 2019 at Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, and followed in 2020 at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, AK and Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH. Thomas incorporates widely identifiable iconography in his images to create commentaries on racial inequality, violence, bias and portrayal of Black bodies perpetuated through advertising. In Absolut Power (2003), Thomas depicted the silhouette of the namesake beverage and filled its volume with the cramped arrangement of enslaved bodies aboard ships during the Atlantic slave trade. In the photographic series Branded (2003-2006), he superimposed the Nike swoosh logo onto Black male bodies to reference jarring images of slave branding and the modern exploitation of the Black male body—particularly in athletics.
For Freedoms is an artist-led organization that models and increases creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. They work with artists and organizations to center the voices of artists in public discourse, expand what participation in a democracy looks like, and reshape conversations about politics. Formed in 2016 by a coalition of BIPOC, queer, and allied artists, For Freedoms has organized hundreds of artist-designed billboards championing the voices of artists and their communities.
Hank Willis Thomas & For Freedoms are recipients of the 2022 Inga Maren Otto Fellowship at The Watermill Center.
Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn, New York. Her performances focus on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. She aims to incite critical engagement with embodied Black history as a means to imagine Black futurity. Her work has been presented at Issue Project Room, Recess Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Danspace Project, Gibney, Center for Performance Research, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, and for BAM’s DanceAfrica Festival. As an educator, she serves as Head of Movement for Theater at Professional Performing Arts School. In collaboration with Rochelle Jamila Wilbun she facilitates AfroPeach, a series of free dance workshops for Black postpartum people in Brooklyn. She is a 2021 danceWEB Scholar, 2021 Laundromat Project Artist-in-Residence, and 2021 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement Grantee. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English from Princeton University.
Additional Information
All attendees must be fully vaccinated, and present proof of vaccination during check-in. Those unable to show proof of vaccination will be turned away. For the foreseeable future, unvaccinated children are unable to attend. Masks are required indoors.
Please arrive 10 minutes early to allow for the check-in process.
The Watermill Center is committed to providing accessible programs and services for all patrons and artists with disabilities. For further information about any accessibility issues or needs, please email us at info@watermillcenter.org.
image: “Pull Me Up Softly” by Joyce Ho, photo copyright Chong Kok-Yew
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