Thea Cohen (she/her) | Productions Manager 2020-2021

In her creative practice, Thea places an emphasis on process and experimentation and likes to learn by doing. She has a background in multimedia installation, furniture making, and methods of fabrication including woodworking, welding, and machine sewing. Her creations utilize various combinations of set, prop, puppet & costume design, video, animation, sculpture, projection, and performance. Thea enjoys non-linear storytelling and is especially interested in the distortions that occur within repetitions across materials, scale, and time. She is fascinated with functionality (or the lack there of) regarding the ways in which physical characteristics influence movement and provoke assumptions around how to inhabit space. Community is an integral part of Thea’s life, and she is always looking for ways to collaborate in all aspects of creating and living.

Nich uses art to conjure immersive experience(s) and emotions within himself and others. Through human expression, he weaves together photography, poetry / creative writing, spoken word, illustration, multimedia, public installations, and bookmaking. He finds power in story--the way folktales travel through time, and how stories continuously shape many aspects in life. He seeks to create narratives that remind himself, and others, to unweave internalized harmful narratives / social standards, provoke self-love/smiles, create mischievous shenanigans, and to appreciate the many-varied emotions within the human experience.

Yari is a queer woman of color, an artist, and art historian focusing on bringing light and creating better opportunities in art spaces for queer artists of color. Even while pursuing her undergrad she took every opportunity to focus her papers on censorship of queer artist and lead seminar discussions on intersectional feminism. Her greatest affinity and source of inspiration for strength, courage, and charisma being the ballroom scene in 80's New York City. Truly falling in love with the mix of art, performance, and authenticity in personal identity and self-expression exhibited in the ballroom scene. She plans on focusing her future higher education on art history as it intertwines with the history of queer culture.

Shameeka Davis-Dunning is an Illustrator in the Triad area, her work is influenced by futurism and anime. Her goal is to carve out space where seeing black characters in anime becomes the norm. She graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a BS in Fashion Merchandising and Design. she is also a lover of cinema; believes everything is worth watching at least once and you can occasionally find her hiking in the mountains.Ig: _pharaohs_queen

Riley Cox is a Greensboro native currently studying sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She grew up surrounded by a family working in textiles, which led to an early love for texture and material exploration. She is interested in the healing properties of creative play and working in a communal setting. Riley loves collecting discarded items, exploring and any event she has the excuse to wear a costume.

Mindy is a self-proclaimed master-of-none that enjoys taking things apart almost as much as she enjoys cozying up in dark corners. Currently working on her Bachelor's in Parks and Recreation Management, she loves getting dirt under her nails and has a well-honed talent for googling things to assist in the problem-solving process. In her free time, she writes, concentrating on narrative writing and performance poetry. She hopes that her time at Elsewhere will inspire her to refocus her creative energies both in work and in play.

Haley is an artist from Virginia. She graduated in 2018 from Virginia Tech with a BFA in Fine Arts as well as a BA in Art History. She would say that her focus is in mixed media sculpture but that’s because she does not really have a focus. She is interested in woodworking, metal working, painting, drawing and fiber arts. She likes collection, recycling of materials, and anything with a nice texture.

Jon Pulse is a flamboyant Aquarian and embroidery artist based in Savannah, Georgia. Utilizing his composition skills and strong eye for color theory, Jon likes to experiment with unconventional materials in creating art that dazzles the eye. He draws inspiration from the bright colorful patterning and geometric shape he finds in discarded fabrics, as well as his experience as a genderqueer person in the South.

Paige has BFA in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work involves exploring human connections with nature. One can often find her outdoors, turning over rocks and logs to find a new critter to study.

Katherine Quinn is a researcher and poet from the frigid land of upstate NY. She spends her days scribbling words on old envelopes, pondering community dynamics, and attempting to grow plants.

Kyra Gross is an artist, theorist, and community organizer who believed a big man in the sky was watching her for most of her life. She now uses object making as a means to analyze the implications of religious thought on how people view themselves, others, and their communities from an anthropological point of view.Her work visualizes a the future of women as intellectual giants surviving and thriving in oppressive systems. She hopes to help others reorient their lives post-god and provide a platform for identities which have been historically suppressed. She believes the systems that we collectively live in today are producing a dying planet - requiring a new generation of thought and activity- divorced from present-day binaries.

Nava Levenson in a multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Richmond, VA. She recently received a piece of paper from James Madison University notifying her of the completion of a BFA program. Her work investigates anthropological concepts such as ritualistic nature of food, depreciation of labor and the object-human relationship. Her work is largely comprised of installations, performances, gatherings, and recently, her own a brand of food.She can often be found crocheting spaghetti, listening to podcasts, telling inconclusive stories and at www.navalevenson.com or on Instagram @nava.levenson.

Please ship canning jars of studio dirt/scrap with your name and number to 325 S Pine St, Richmond, VA 23230.

Based in Minneapolis, Riley Kleve graduated Hampshire College with a BA in Curatorial Practice and Studio Art in 2017. Riley's work is concerned with the work we do in our living spaces and the living we do in our workplaces. Riley usually works in textiles but has dabbled with painting, stained glass, printmaking, and construction tarps.

House Manager / Curator

Avery Rose (they/them) is a 3rd generation dumpster diver, collector, maker, and jack of all trades wannabe raised in Waxhaw, NC. They have a BFA in painting and a range of professional experiences in furniture, upholstery, design, and restoration related fields. They like to explore color, shape, and line through textile work, tattooing, painting on unconventional surfaces, and collecting natural and discarded objects. Avery's work founded on interests in sustainable and communal living, travel and exploration, environmentalism, homesteading, and diy culture.

Avery has been the House Manager/Curator at Elsewhere since 2018. They have completed a number of projects including building a new front desk from collection, co-creating the Shelter Elsewhere Residency, and patching various holes around the museum in unexpected ways. Avery can be found at @dirt_soup on Instagram.

Aurora San Miguel uses the title of artist to wear many hats (poet, theorist, archivist, publisher, screenwriter, filmmaker, sculptor, party planner, proprietor, etc.). She is concerned with ZOOM (dilation, exposing in literal and metaphoric ways–intensities). She received a BFA in Photomedia and a BA in Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Washington in 2018.Aurora loves email: aurorajsm@gmail.com

Nadia Ahmed is a slow-reader, movie snob, and insomniac. She is also a performance artist, sculptor, and arts administrator currently based in Seattle, WA. She is interested in showing vulnerability as strength and exploring her perpetual discomfort through her work. After she leaves Elsewhere, she looks forward to creating inclusive, accessible, and collaborative art spaces. She can also out-karaoke anyone with Kelly Clarkson’s Since You Been Gone.

instagram: @nadiaahmed

Chee Earn Khor is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Malaysia. In the attempts of manifesting awareness from one body to another, she utilizes sculptures, installations, and performance to ponder, document and distort relatable human experiences. Personal narratives, observations of cultural signifiers, along with a tablespoon of curiosity and a dash of humor currently drive her studio practice.

Anna Bonesteel graduated this June with an estimable training in the canonical arts. [S/he thinks at eight percent irony.] Anna was briefly enrolled at Brown University and studied at RISD's European Honors Program in Rome. S/he currently reads predominantly fiction, much of it in translation from the French (?). An interest in soft systems animates hi/r Programs work at Elsewhere [[— as well as an insistent optimism in the human project. Anna acts on hi/r formalist compulsion by copy-editing freelance. Please contact at aboneste@alumni.risd.edu

Andrew Gelwick is fresh out of school having received a degree in business and arts administration. They also make art, usually with paper, and Gelwick's work deals with exploring narratives inspired by their use of vintage materials. Andrew's process involves estate sales, thrift stores, and a large, ever growing, personal collection of photographs, unique magazines, and other paper ephemera. They also love mopeds.

Imani Thomas is a filmmaker & photographer currently based in the Triad. As a kid she thought there were people in her air vents and would tell them stories. Much to the thrill of her family, she decided to pursue visual storytelling and not things that were expected of kids who talked to walls. Imani enjoys making movies, taking portraits, kayaking, trespassing, and buying clothes off the interwebs. Contact at: timani44@gmail.com