The 20 winners of seven-month winter fellowships at Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center arrived in town on Oct. 1. As usual, the cohort includes 10 visual artists and 10 writers. They are in the middle of a “robust orientation schedule,” says Thierry Kehou, FAWC’s fellowship director.
Kehou, a writer and translator, is himself new to Provincetown. He and his family arrived in town in June from New York City, where he co-founded the Lampblack Literary Foundation, a nonprofit supporting Black writers. He has also been director of programs and partnerships at Poets & Writers.
Last week, cartographer, geologist, and painter Mark Adams led a coastal geology lesson for the fellows. “He showed them how the Cape came to be,” says Kehou. The fellows also went foraging for mushrooms in Wellfleet with food writer Elspeth Hay. Afterward, they made mushroom ragu in FAWC’s communal kitchen. “I could smell it from my office,” says Kehou, “which is pretty far away.”
The orientation has also included a sunset sailing trip, movie night, and a tour of Commercial Street. “The fellows are having a blast,” says Kehou. “The orientation is grounding them in this place and its history.”
In past years, FAWC’s visual arts fellows have largely been painters. This year, “there are quite a few fellows who work with film — still images and moving images,” Kehou says. There are a lot of interdisciplinary visual artists working in a variety of mediums, he adds.
Brief profiles of the 10 FAWC visual arts fellows follow.
José De Sancristóbal uses photography, film, and writing to explore the way lens-based images inform society, particularly how cameras are used to regulate and monitor citizens. His work draws both from realism and fantasy, distorting traditional ways of identification.
Born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, Alejandro Guzmán creates works that encourage viewers to confront their relationships with structure and space. His mixed-media, geometric, sculptural works seem otherworldly yet entirely physical. Guzmán is a returning fellow from 2013-14.
Elena Kovylyaeva is based in Leipzig, Germany. Her work has been exhibited in Germany and the U.S. Using found materials, Kovylyaeva focuses on a tactile experience — her work, mostly done in muted colors, is cracked, frayed, and folded.
Dani Levine is an artist and educator currently living in Astoria, Queens, in New York City. Since 2023, she’s been an artist in residence at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. According to her artist statement on the FAWC website, Levine’s paintings “converse with queer-feminist aesthetics to explore themes of chance, agency, and resilience.”
Born in Zibo, China, Mengwei Ma is now based in Beijing. A writer, director, and actress, Ma is currently raising money for a new short film titled A Piece of Shit. She’s also writing a feature film script and a novel. In her FAWC artist statement, Ma says that the artistic process is about “discovering the true connection between the self and the world.”
Ian Page is interested in continuity. How does continuity reject change yet embrace progress? His sculptures, installations, and videos confront things that stay. In his artist statement, Page specifically mentions candy bars: “Why don’t they go away?”
Zeinab Shahidi Marnani was born in Isfahan, Iran and now lives in Tehran and New York. Her work includes the disciplines of video installation, painting, and collage and explores the idea of vision and perspective. Shahidi Marnani is a returning fellow from 2023-24.
Edd Ravn is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York. According to his artist statement, his practice includes “growing bacteria, painting with rainwater, recording soundscapes, and designing public furniture to co-create animate objects that question perception, connection, and change.”
Born in Xi’an, China, Cherrie Yu now lives in the U.S. Her work involves choreography, moving images, writing, and installation, with a particular focus on how embodied knowledge is kept and then passed on.
Based in Caracas, Venezuela, Carlos Zerpa is an artist, creative producer, educator, and social entrepreneur. His work addresses social issues in South America and the Caribbean through storytelling. Zerpa’s scriptwriting, design, animation, and street art is “rooted in cooperation and solidarity,” according to his artist statement.
Exhibitions of work by the visual arts fellows will be on display periodically from February through April at FAWC’s “Fellow Fridays.” Brief profiles of this year’s 10 writing fellows will appear in next week’s Independent.
