Kelsey Sharpe is a queer multidisciplinary conceptual artist and filmmaker of color from Jersey City, NJ of Jamaican-Indian and Irish-Slavic descent. Sharpe graduated from Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Studies and Anthropology. Sharpe’s practice examines the intersections between the digital and physical world and the ways in which those spaces alter human connection.

IG: @sharpekelsey

Website: kelseysharpe.com

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.

Christian Lee is a Puerto Rican comic who draws comics, poetry, and books. Their illustrative work varies from subcultures, to horror, to speculative fiction. Under the skin, the heart of their art and uses fiction as metaphor to explore real human relationships.

As a performer, their drawings accompany them to the stage in mixed-media performances using humor and storytelling to digest their experiences as a Hispanic POC, gender expectations, and grief.

Rae Red (they/them) encourages the radical act of laughter in the face of darkness by translating everyday realities into performance and play. Their work exposes the magic and wonder within our daily functions, from the wizardry of sight and color theory, to the way water invisibly keeps our lives flowing smoothly like a ghost within the walls. They explore subjects that are universal like blood pumping through veins, while bringing light our own mortality and to the death that is continuously occurring around us. Through performances across the United States Rae Red investigates topics that unite viewers by exposing commonalities while examining the disparate facets within them. They have presented their work in every type of space imaginable from dive bars and the backs of donut shops to The Museum of Human Achievement, High Concept Labs, Cucalorus Stage Festival, and The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. They received a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Towson University’s Theatre Arts Program.

Shelter Elsewhere Fellow

Kinari Council (he/they) is a Community based mixed media artist, designer located in North Carolina.

He attended NCA&T’S VISART Program and utilizes the skills he learned to create socially conscious art centered around creating awareness and engaging subjects concerning marginalized groups. His passion is to use my creativity to speak to and for those that often go overlooked.

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.