Ej Nussbaum is a Chicago based experimental artist. Current questions that guide her practice include: How do objects hold power? What is the relationship between symbolic and material change? What forms of collaboration are equitable for all people involved?

Nick Jackson is a drawer, photographer, amateur oral historian, and professional curious itch-scratcher. His work puts journalistic storytelling and raw, expressive markmaking in the same cage to see what happens. He’s currently working on a graphic novel piecing together conflicting accounts of the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan revolution in Ukraine.

nickmerlockjackson@gmail.com

Oleksandra Chuprina was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1995. During the 2013 Ukranian Revolution of Dignity, she worked with the filmmaking group #BABYLON’13. (These films are available on YouTube.) She worked as an assistant director, editor, and sound engineer with an international crew. She is currently working on the film Pearl of Absurd, which is about the connections between past and present in Odesa. Oleksandra is a Fulbright scholar. She is excited to gain skills and knowledge in New Media so that she can use technology as a tool for interactive storytelling.

Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, Asya has lived in the States since she was eleven years old. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Keene State College in New Hampshire focusing on visual studies and moving image. She is currently a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago focusing on moving image. Asya is an interdisciplinary artist interested in public interaction and video performance with the intention of questioning identity, how one relates to their environment and how failure becomes an opening.

austin mccann is an artist, writer, teacher, and 2nd year MFA at UIC. The work he produces in text, performance, and time-based media is principally focused on language practices and performing collectivities. He has the difficult hope that along the way, new poetries or practices might emerge to upend the world. His writings have appeared in publications by Flatland and Apparatus Projects. Before starting his MFA, austin worked as a film programmer, writing instructor, and performer. He has a BA from New College of Florida.

As an Iranian Azerbaijanis-American woman, Laleh Motlagh delves into profound explorations of love, intimacy, spirituality, trust, and resilience while remaining present to her own localities. Based in Chicago, Motlagh challenges socio-cultural alienation and navigates the complexities of multicultural identity.

Jared Christopher Kelley (b. 1988, Atlanta, GA) is a Chicago based interdisciplinary artist creating narrative and experimental physical and digital sculptures, installations, and performances favoring participatory formats.

Sonya Bogdanova (b. 1991, Moscow) is a Chicago-based artist. She is an MFA Candidate in Studio Arts (2021) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2012. Primarily working with paint, glue, and garbage, Bogdanova examines the interplay between oppressive class structures and exigent family dynamics. Bogdanova recently exhibited at Flatland (Chicago), Sylvia Rivera Law Project (New York), and Co-Prosperity Sphere (Chicago).

Julian Van Der Moere is an artist and writer living in Chicago, IL. He received his BA in Art History from DePaul University and is an MFA candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Some recent exhibitions include: Carbon Copy at Tique, Antwerp, Belgium (2019), Pixel at GCADD, St. Louis, curated by PWMD (2018), and This is Not Here, RE: Art Show at the Pfizer building in Brooklyn, curated by Efrem Zelony-Mindell (2018).

BIO: b.1996 Berkely, CA