ARTS Southeast is pleased to present ON::View Revue, an annual exhibition featuring the previous year’s ON::View Artists-in-Residence. ON::View Revue presents work created during each artist’s Residency and afterward, surveying their recent explorations and presenting them in conversation with one another.
In the ON::View Residency in February and March, Libbi Ponce (FL/Ecuador/CA) became ON::View’s first Resident ever to be awarded a two-month stay, producing large-scale sculptures in materials ranging from metal to fiberglass. In the spring, Kiara Gilbert (Atlanta, GA) took printmaking into the sculptural realm with suspended paper forms and expanded their research centering queer lineage. Nashville-based painter John Paul Kesling worked with ARTS Southeast in a variety of capacities this year, with a prolific Residency in May followed by a summer solo exhibition in The Ellis Gallery and an Artist Spotlight in IMPACT Magazine Vol 3 No 1.
Summer Residents offered us ways of experiencing the Residency space itself like never before. In June, Ontario-based duo Leslie Putnam and David Bobier brought us a unique community experience through their inclusive, holistic practice. Their transformation of the Residency window into a vibrotactile surface allowed visitors and passerby to experience haptic empathy through touch. In July, Gweny Jin (Columbus, OH) considered the Residency through an architectural lens, responding to light and shadow with a structural installation that evolved with time. In August, Asma Khoshmehr (Boston, MA) welcomed us into a poignant and personal multimedia installation telling an intimate family story through virtual reality, with inspiration drawn from Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights.
In September, award-winning NY-based filmmaker Brydie O’Connor continued her project The Roaming Center for Memory using digitized archival elements that show queer life in the South and Midwest. In October, New Zealand-based collective Miki Seifert and William Franco drew the Residency year to a close with Azucar/Sugar, researching Georgia’s role in the history of the sugar trade and creating an ofrenda with sugar skulls in conjunction with Dia de Muertos.
We’re also proud to include ARTS Southeast’s inaugural Incubator Artist, Savannah-based Charles Mack, whose interdisciplinary work considers design and perspective from a nonlinear lens. The Incubator Artist Initiative provides a local emerging artist with a year-long residency including a free studio, memberships to ARTS Southeast, Telfair Museums and SCAD MOA, as well as mentorship, professional practice, and exhibition opportunities.
Our programming is made possible with investment by the City of Savannah. “ON::View Revue” is made possible with support from Gulfstream Aerospace.
The ON::View and Incubator Residency Programs are sponsored in part by Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. GCA also receives support from its partner agency - the National Endowment for the Arts.
Special thanks to our local Residency Sponsors:
Starlandia Supply, Telfair Museums, SCAD Museum of Art, Green Truck Pub, and Starland Yard.
LIBBI PONCE
TSA vs MRI
Film, 2024
Is a tomb like a chrysalis?
is a TSA scanner like a chrysalsis?
computer tomography
x-rays (which work from radiation?)
to not just see things but also through bodies
physicists say 90% of all matter in the universe is dark matter
meaning, unknown,
but i think this grey matter must be the souls and spirits of all the beings before us.
an unknown box you put your belongings in
they are evaluated, inspected, almost without touching, through x-ray vision
producing tiny sparks of light
a rapid confetti of light
but when you slow them down, they are stars
different colored stars
but how can these stars know what we are?
is this what happens when we black out?
or in a near death experience?
do we go back to being stars, signalling to one another across the sky, across space?
my mother used to tell me about how her mom was pregnant with triplets at one point
she had a premature stillbirth of them
and that my grandmother preserved them in jars
in a liquid.. (vinegar? alcohol?)
and stored them in the freezer
how to mourn something that never lived
TSA x MRI draws from the lived experience of Ponce's family as a marginalized social demographic. Using footage captured inside a TSA scanner as well as recorded conversations between the artist and their family members, the work touches on access and quality of healthcare afforded to the poor and the dire results of negligence and misdiagnoses.
Libbi Ponce (they/them, she/her) is an Ecuadorian artist, born in 1997 to a family of musicians, making sculptures, 360-degree videos, installations, and performances. Ponce explores themes of Latinx-Futurism through a sculptural practice of world-building incorporating an ambitious range of materials including steel, bronze, resin, polyurethane, mortar, grout, terracotta, and glass. Inspired by the erotic and anthropomorphic motifs from ancient Andean ceramics, Ponce constructs tactile sculptural objects which probe discourse on grief, intimacy, and historic folklore.
They have attended the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Oxbow Artists' Residency, Yale Norfolk Undergraduate Residency, and ACRE. Exhibitions include terciopelo at Selenas Mountain, BASE REMOVED at the Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo, and Skyway 20/21 at the Tampa Museum of Art. They hold a BFA in Studio Art and BA in Philosophy from the University of South Florida. In 2021, Ponce completed a Fulbright Creative Research Fellowship in Ecuador. In 2023, they completed an ArtTable research fellowship at the Chrysler Museum Of Art. Libbi is the founder/director of galeria juniin in Guayaquil, Ecuador and Co-Director of Coco Hunday Gallery in Tampa, FL. Libbi is currently based between Ecuador and the states.
GWENY JIN
Gweny Jin is a trained architect, designer and maker currently teaching full-time at Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. She has taught full-time at Pratt Institute as a teaching fellow, and at Rhode Island School of Design while being a graduate student there. Jin explores drawings, painting, sculptural and installation work – all with an architectural lens – to articulate art interventions that elevate the unique placeness of ordinary space. Jin’s working process focuses on using mixed craft and techniques as the pidgin language of making, incorporating time as a factor, and adopting light and shadow as a designed element to interact with tangible forms.
John Paul Kesling
John Paul Kesling (b. 1980, USA) was born and raised in Northeastern Kentucky in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. He received his BFA in Arts from Morehead State University (Morehead, KY, 2003) and spent a summer in Europe studying art history (Summer 2002). He went on to receive his MFA in Painting from SCAD (Savannah, GA, 2010). He spent the next six years in Brooklyn, NY immersed in the NYC art scene. In March of 2016, while attending a month-long residency at The Vermont Studio Center he realized how integral time, space, and nature were to his studio practice and in 2016, relocated to Madison, TN, just outside of Nashville.
His work has been featured in various group exhibitions and in 2022 he was accepted to the White Columns Curated Online Artist Registry. His work is included in the permanent collections of SCAD, Vanderbilt University Medical Center Community Arts Initiative and Soho House Nashville. He has attended artist residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Art Residency Chattanooga, Azule, Jx Farms, and Mudhouse. He has had solo shows at Wheelhouse Arts (Louisville, KY), Oz Arts (Nashville, TN) and The Red Arrow Gallery (Nashville, TN).
Kesling is a member of the artist collective at Ground Floor Contemporary (Birmingham, AL) and is represented by The Red Arrow Gallery (Nashville, TN) and Wheelhouse Art (Louisville, KY).
ASMA KHOSHMEHR
One Thousand and One Nights in Zanzibar
2024
One Thousand and One Nights in Zanzibar merges biography and documentary with a deeply personal and introspective approach. This project explores a shocking family secret the artist discovered through a transformative journey across Tanzania, Kenya, Oman, and Iran. The secret involves the survival of Khoshmehr family members from forced child marriages during the 1970s revolution in Zanzibar and the daring escape that followed. Having recorded interviews with family members using volumetric capture technology, and scanned significant locations of their escape using 3D laser scanning, Khoshmehr edited these materials to create a compelling narrative that conveys the emotional depth and intricate details of their story.
Asma Khoshmehr is an interdisciplinary artist involved in immersive storytelling, volumetric media and documentary filmmaking. Her projects are rooted in East African and Middle Eastern cultures, with a particular fascination for the myths and folklore of the One Thousand and One Nights book. Through her lens, she captures the essence of generational trauma, forced displacement, and political sexual violence, shining a light on the struggles of those who have been silenced for too long. Coming from a multicultural background, she is currently working on a project regarding her maternal background from Tanzania to the diaspora. Asma holds a BFA in Performing Arts and an MFA in Film and Media Arts from Emerson College. She received (UFVA) Carole Fielding Grant, alongside the Virgin Unite Fund Award. Additionally, she participated in artist fellowships at esteemed institutions like MASS MoCA and MacDowell.
She is currently working on her hybrid documentary project, a result of her transformative journey spanning years across Tanzania, Kenya, Oman, and Iran. Traveling to these countries, she gathered information, filmed, and conducted interviews, leading to the discovery of a profound family secret. Now, she will meticulously edit the footage, enrich the documentary with archival research and create an immersive installation to invite viewers to engage with her discoveries.
BRYDIE O’CONNOR
Film by Brydie O'Connor, 2024
A personal video piece exploring the filmmaker's fractured relationship with her mother through an archival collection of home videos and an imaginative mother/daughter connection in the present
Brydie O’Connor is a Kansas-born, NY based filmmaker and archivist. Her award-winning work focuses on women-driven and queer stories. Brydie’s work has been supported by The Future of Film Is Female, Hot Docs, Dok.Leipzig, Ji.hlava IDFF, NYFA, NYSCA, Brooklyn Arts Council, DocsBarcelona, ArtsKC, and the Stonewall Foundation, and has screened at places such as The Museum of Modern Art, BFI, & DOC NYC. Most recently, Brydie was selected as the recipient of the Hulu/Kartemquin Accelerator with her debut feature documentary, and she is developing two new projects in the UFO Short Film Lab. She is a graduate of The George Washington University, and has developed her work at both the Arts Letters & Numbers Residency (2022) and the Provincetown Film Society Queer Filmmakers Residency (2024). She is currently in production on her debut feature documentary on pioneering lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, executive produced by Killer Films.
Leslie Putnam & David Bobier
David Bobier is a self-identified hard of hearing media artist with a mental health diagnosis and is the parent of 2 deaf children, now adults. His work has been exhibited internationally and has been the focus of prominent touring exhibitions in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces. Bobier has received grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Grand NCE, British Council, Ontario Arts Council and New Brunswick Arts Council.
He has partnered with Inclusive Media and Design Centre at Ryerson University, Toronto and Tactile Audio Displays Inc. in researching and employing vibrotactile technology as a creative medium. As an extension of this research Bobier has established and is Director of VibraFusionLab in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The Lab emphasizes a holistic approach to considering vibration as a language of creation and exploration and to investigating broader and more inclusive applications of the sensory interpretation and emotionality of sound and vibration in art making practices. Through VibraFusionLab and in his own art practice Bobier aims at creating opportunities of greater accessibility in art making, art appreciation and in viewer experiences of art practices and presentations.
Leslie Putnam is a London Ontario based artist and educator. She earned her BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec with a Major in Studio Art and BEd from Western University in London, Ontario. Putnam’s work includes exhibitions in Europe and now in Ontario, her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions including Electric Eclectics, Toronto-(Nuit Blanche and Hard Twist), JNAAG, Museum London and the Canadian Clay and Glass Museum. She has received research, exhibition, and multi and inter arts projects grants from the Ontario Arts Council.
As a multi-disciplinary artist, Leslie creates multi-modal sculptures and installations on the premise that sculpture can and should include the ability of access though multiple senses, removing the barrier of “do not touch”created by the limitations of institutions. In 2010 she and David Bobier formed the o’honey collective as a platform for research and creation relating to the natural world.
Learn more at www.vflvibrafusionlab.com
WILLIAM FRANCO & MIKI SEIFERT
Azucar/Sugar
2024
Azucar/Sugar (2024) explores the connection between the globalization of sugar and colonization. Drawn toward this work through Franco's Zapotec and Mixtec culture, Franco and Seifert researched Savannah's history of refining sugar, and how Georgia played a critical part in sugar’s history in the Americas.
William Franco (San Diego, CA) is a border crosser, choosing the best form and media to embody his performative ideas. His multi-disciplinary approach grows out his collaboration with the original members of The Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo. Franco is best known for “The Illustrated Chicano,” his interactive installation on being a Chicano in diaspora, and mounting the HAKO Virtual Projection Mapping Festival during the COVID pandemic. He has worked as the AV specialist at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, tutor and theatre technician at Victoria University of Wellington, a location sound mixer on independent features and documentaries in Los Angeles, and a customer cabinet maker in San Diego.
Miki Seifert (Bethlehem, PA): Miki Seifert’s body of work ranges from performances, installations and videos with her collaborator William Franco to solo work of mixed media paintings to writing and artbooks. Her movement training (Butoh, contact improvisation, ballet, circus arts and gymnastics) imbues her work with flow, timing, placement, and a balance between the improvised and the choreographed. Her introduction to installation art was collaborating with David Avalos, Deborah Small and William Franco on the video “Ramona: birth of mis-ce-ge-NATION”, which was included in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition, “Made in California: Best Art of the 20th Century.” She is best known for “He rawe tona kakahu/She wore a becoming dress”, a Butoh performance about gender and colonization. Her performative research is published in The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance and the Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies.
Franco and Seifert are the co-founders and artistic directors of With Lime, an artist collective that creates performances, installations and projections that explore the interface between cultures and/or technology. As part of their vision of the arts as a force for personal and societal transformation, they conduct research to expand performative methodologies and practices. Franco and Seifert’s artistic multilinguality allows the work of With Lime to cross the borders between visual, media, dance and theatre arts. With Lime’s work has been in galleries, museums and film festivals around the world.
Charles Mack
Charles Mack (b. 1999) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher currently based in Savannah, GA whose work investigates design and perspective from a nonlinear lens. Mack received a BA in Psychology from Indiana University in 2021, where he completed independent studies in serigraphy and design outside of his academic program. In May 2021, Mack had his first solo exhibition titled And the Trees Were Like Mushrooms, a two-day exhibition featuring photography, screenprinting, and filmmaking. Follow Charles’ work on Instagram at @seamackk.
