Open Studios
Through April 26

Spring Open Studios 2025

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Spring Open Studios is a presentation of international contemporary art by the 34 artists and curators from 26 countries in residence. Guest speaker curator Kate Fowle will make remarks at 7pm during the opening reception.

This event is free and open to the public.

Three times a year, ISCP invites the public to engage with its cohort of international artist and curator residents in their individual studios. Residents present recent projects, work in progress, site-specific installations and their archives to a large audience of professionals and art enthusiasts from New York and beyond. Concentrated in a three-story postindustrial loft building in East Williamsburg, ISCP supports the creative advancement of artists and curators from around the world, presents exhibitions and talks year-round, and fosters cultural exchange. From 1994 to the present, ISCP has hosted over 2,000 alumni hailing from more than 105 countries. Today, ISCP’s Open Studios, a three-decade tradition, continues to be the organization’s public favorite event.

Visitors can also explore two solo exhibitions on view at ISCP: Hellen Ascoli: The World Upside Down and Amy Bravo: Some Bullheaded Girls. Hellen Ascoli approaches weaving as a form of translation—a way to reveal personal and shared histories through intricately patterned textiles. Her vibrant compositions, which extend from textiles to collage, drawing and video, are inspired by weaving traditions and material culture from her home country of Guatemala as well as decolonial writings. Through surreal, assemblage compositions, Amy Bravo explores ideas around inheritance, memory, and biography. Fusing family history and mythology, she creates deeply personal works that question and reinterpret the stories passed on to her. 

The exhibitions are curated by Melinda Lang, Director of Programs and Exhibitions at ISCP. 

Open Studios participating artists and curators:

Asal Andarzipour (Canada/Iran); Jean Claracq (France); Adèle Essle Zeiss (Sweden); Matthias Garff (Germany); Braxton Garneau (Canada); Kaija Hinkula (Finland); Szu-Ying Hsu (Taiwan); Aryel René Jackson (United States); Hong Seon Jang (South Korea/United States); Angel Lartigue (United States); Laura Lappi (Finland/United States); Ailyn Lee (South Korea/United States); Sujin Lim (South Korea/United States); Simon Liu (Hong Kong/United States); Inge Meijer (The Netherlands); Azita Moradkhani (Iran/United States); Cem Örgen (Turkey); Hermes Payrhuber (Austria/United States); Tamen Pérez (Costa Rica/United States); Charlie Perez-Tlatenchi (United States/Mexico); Sadhna Prasad (India); Tora Schultz (Denmark); Pou-Ching Tsai (Taiwan); Adriane de Souza (Brazil/Qatar); Hanae Utamura (Japan/United States); Marianne Vlaschits (Austria); Sebastián Vidal Mackinson (Argentina); Alice Wang (United States/China/Canada); Apichaya Wanthiang (Norway/Thailand/Belgium); Sasha Wortzel (United States); Hannah Woo (South Korea); Sinae Yoo (South Korea); Akeema-Zane (United States/Trinidad and Tobago); Sarah Zapata (United States)

ISCP thanks the following residency sponsors:

Alberta Foundation for the Arts; Behdad Esfahbod; Alfred Kordelin Foundation; Alice and Lawrence Weiner; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; Canada Council for the Arts; Danish Arts Foundation; DOOSAN Art Center; Edmonton Arts Council; Every Page Foundation; Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport of Austria; Fire Station–Qatar Museums; Hartfield Foundation; Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; IASPIS–The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual Artists; Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation; Jane Farver Memorial Fund; KdFS–Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen; La Fondation pour l’Art Contemporain Claudine et Jean-Marc Salomon; Ministry of Culture, Taiwan; Mondriaan Fund; OCA–Office for Contemporary Art Norway; SAHA Association; Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation; The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Council District 34; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts and Saastamoinen Foundation; and Vision Fund.

This program is also generously supported, in part, by the Consulate General of Denmark;  Consulate General of the Netherlands; Consulate General of Sweden; The Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; Grimm Artisanal Ales; Hartfield Foundation; Materials for the Arts; James Rosenquist Foundation; The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Council Member for the 34th District; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; van Beuren Charitable Foundation; and William Talbott Hillman Foundation.

In addition to the many individuals who support ISCP, the members of Director’s Circle are also thanked for their largesse: Anne Altchek, Barbara van Beuren, Younghee Kim-Wait, Doreen Small, and Laurie Sprayregen.
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Please note that the entrance to ISCP has seven steps and a ramp, which is ADA compliant. There are seven artist studios and one exhibition space which can be accessed on the first floor of ISCP. There is an accessible bathroom on the first floor at the end of the hallway, up one step, where the artist studios are located. To access the second floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 22 steps. The second floor has 22 artist and curator studios, one exhibition space, and a lounge where remarks by our guest speaker will take place. To access the third floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 24 steps. The third floor has five artist and curator studios. ISCP can access a freight elevator to bring visitors between the first and second floors on request.

ISCP can offer two reserved parking spaces on request for people with disabilities. Please email programs@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.

Opening Reception: Apr 25, 2025, 6–9pm
Open Hours: 1–6pm
Download Press Release (PDF)

ISCP Talk
April 15, 2025, 6:30–7:30pm

Artists at Work: Angel Lartigue in Conversation with Oscar Salguero

For this Artists at Work, ISCP artist-in-residence Angel Lartigue will be joined by curator Oscar Salguero. Lartigue will speak about her development as an artist in Houston nightclubs and speak with Salguero about her essay “Science at the Club: Putrefaction as an Artistic Medium,” and her multi-part performance titled Bacteriomancy (i) & (ii). They will discuss their overlapping interests, including working with non-human living systems and interspecies subjects. A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Angel Lartigue works across installation, performance, photography, and drawing to examine putrefaction, one of the biological stages of decomposition, and its capability for nourishment. Her works incorporate an array of materials including microscopic life forms from burial sites, living sculptures, nightclub architectures, soundwork collaborations and even odors captured during fieldwork. Angel Lartigue has exhibited work at SOOT, New York; The Latinx Project at New York University, New York; and USC Roski School of Art and Design, Los Angeles, among others.

Oscar Salguero is an independent curator and researcher based in Queens, NY. He is the founder of Interspecies Library, the first archive of artists’ books exploring interspecies futures. Salguero curated Interspecies Futures [IF] at Center for Book Arts (2021) and NEO MINERALIA at Center for Craft (2023). Currently, he is developing Journal of Therolinguistics, a platform dedicated to the poetic study of nonhuman languages, which he will present next year at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles.

This program is supported by Vision Fund; Hartfield Foundation; James Rosenquist Foundation; Joe Sultan; Lèna Saltos; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; New York City Council District 34; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; Dr. Samar Maziad; Sarah Jones; van Beuren Charitable Foundation; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; and Woodman Family Foundation.
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This in-person event will be live streamed through Instagram: @iscp_nyc.

Accessibility information: Please note that the entrance to ISCP has seven steps and a ramp, which is ADA compliant. There are seven artist studios and one exhibition space which can be accessed on the first floor of ISCP. There is an accessible bathroom on the first floor at the end of the hallway, up one step, where the artist studios are located. To access the second floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 22 steps. The second floor has 22 artist and curator studios, one exhibition space, and a lounge where remarks by our guest speaker will take place. To access the third floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 24 steps. The third floor has five artist and curator studios. ISCP  can access a freight elevator to bring visitors between the first and second floors on request.

ISCP can offer two reserved parking spaces on request for people with disabilities. Please email programs@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.

6:30–7:30pm

Participating Residents

Exhibition
Through August 1

Hellen Ascoli: The World Upside Down

Join us for the Opening Reception on Tuesday, April 8 from 6–8pm.

The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) presents Hellen Ascoli: The World Upside Down, the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York. Spanning a range of mediums from textiles to collage, drawing and video, The World Upside Down brings together works by Ascoli that explore how weaving serves as a form of translation, a way to retell collective histories, and reveal the power of language in its spoken, written, and woven forms. Ascoli, who is known for her intricate weavings made with a backstrap loom—a tool that wraps around the waist, often reflects on the ways textiles connect to the body and to place. She finds inspiration in an array of sources including weaving histories and material culture from her home country of Guatemala, as well as the decolonial writings of Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui.

Ascoli’s thinking around translation is informed by her work as an interpreter for immigrant youth from Central and South America who are navigating the U.S. incarceration system. During her interpretation sessions, she creates points of connection by teaching random weaving, an intuitive technique that produces a loose, structureless pattern. In her own words, Ascoli says “I watch it become a support for these border crossers, who have become untethered to their country and language of origin.” Works like Interpreting Ana feature this collaborative random weave intertwined with layers of differently woven textiles made using backstrap and floor looms. While weaving, Ascoli considers how experiences of migration and displacement stir up feelings of uncertainty and loss. Her practice makes space for sharing these stories and healing from personal and collective trauma.

Hellen Ascoli is a Guatemalan artist, weaver, and educator living in Baltimore, Maryland and Guatemala City, Guatemala. She was a resident at ISCP in 2023, supported by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; La Nueva Fábrica, Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala; Art Pace, San Antonio, Texas; and Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, Guatemala. She has participated in group exhibitions at institutions including Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Bienal de Arte Paiz, Museo de Correos, Guatemala City. Ascoli’s work was recently featured in Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 at El Museo del Barrio, New York, and it is currently on view in Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. 

Hellen Ascoli: The World Upside Down is curated by Melinda Lang, ISCP’s Director of Programs and Exhibitions. It is supported by Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; Hartfield Foundation; James Rosenquist Foundation; Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation; New York City Council District 34; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; van Beuren Charitable Foundation; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; and Woodman Family Foundation.
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Accessibility information: Please note that the entrance to ISCP has seven steps and a ramp, which is ADA compliant. There are seven artist studios and one exhibition space which can be accessed on the first floor of ISCP. There is an accessible bathroom on the first floor at the end of the hallway, up one step, where the artist studios are located. To access the second floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 22 steps. The second floor has 22 artist and curator studios, one exhibition space, and a lounge where remarks by our guest speaker will take place. To access the third floor there is a staircase with a grab bar installed on the right side with 24 steps. The third floor has five artist and curator studios. ISCP  can access a freight elevator to bring visitors between the first and second floors on request.

ISCP can offer two reserved parking spaces on request for people with disabilities. Please email programs@iscp-nyc.org to request a parking space and/or freight elevator usage.

Participating Residents