Past Resident
2022: Vision Fund

Artist

Ferguson Amo

Ferguson Amo works across various mediums, including hyper realistic drawings, installations, and mixed media. Originally from Koforidua, Ghana, the artist explores contemporary African identity in the diaspora and examines the intricate details of history and experiences of cultural diffusion, and its assimilation, through representation. Through each work, Amo asks “how as an audience, can we move the image of black bodies and ‘blackness’ toward emancipation?”

Ferguson Amo has exhibited work at VisArts, Rockville; Kente Royal Gallery and The Immigrant Artist Biennial, both New York City, among others.

Events & Exhibitions

Ferguson Amo and Tere Garcia in Conversation with Alison Kuo

March 22, 2022, 6-7:30pm

Ferguson Amo, RGBlackLivesMatter, 2020, pen, embroidery, plastic, and kente cloth on paper, 30 × 39 in. (76.2 × 99.06 cm).

I have always battled with this notion of having multiple identities since moving through spaces. From living in Ghana to various cities in America. Which Identity do I depict depending on who I was around? This idea of double consciousness. The Kente cloth, royal clothing in Ghana, wrapped around the figures, is similar to what the Egyptians did with mummies to preserve bodies. The Kente cloth pattern and even the process it is made has always intrigued me. Patterns can define a culture, an individual, or a whole generation. Golden teeth show a sign of empowerment, as slaves used after their teeth were knocked out during slavery. You see multiple figures in the drawing, but only a single face shows and smiles like everything is perfect.

Ferguson Amo, Dual Self, 2018, pen and gold leaf on paper, 45 × 45 in. (114.3 × 114.3 cm).

Ferguson Amo, Black on black, 2019, pen and marker on watercolor paper, 90 × 60 in. (228.6 × 152.4 cm).

Ferguson Amo, Contingent Identity Cards of the African Diaspora, 2019, pen and gold leaf on paper, 16 works, 19 × 22 in. (48.26 × 55.88 cm) each.

Ferguson Amo, sistas wisdom, 2017, pen and embroidery on paper, 90 × 45 in. (228.6 × 114.3 cm).

Residents from United States

Aryel René Jackson

United States

Vision Fund

Studio #305

Hanae Utamura

Japan, United States

Every Page Foundation

Studio #201

Akeema-Zane

United States, Trinidad and Tobago

Vision Fund

Studio #203

Donate

Dominican Republic

Past Resident
2022: Vision Fund

Artist

Lizania Cruz

Lizania Cruz uses audience participation to investigate notions of being and belonging within the public sphere. Using objects such as books, zines, installations, happenings, video, and photography, she invites a diverse range of communities to co-create collaborative artworks. Through research, oral history, and active participants, the projects she develops aim to highlight pluralistic narratives about migration and race.

Lizania Cruz has exhibited work at Bemis Center For Contemporary Arts, Omaha; El Museo del Barrio and CUE Art Foundation, both New York City, among others.

Events & Exhibitions

Publishing from an Immigrant Perspective

August 23, 2022, 6:30–8pm

Past, Present and Future: The Life of a Project

June 7, 2022, 6:30–8pm

Lizania Cruz: Every Immigrant Is a Writer/Todo Inmigrante Es un Escritor

April 8–August 26, 2022

Lizania Cruz and Zachary Fabri in Conversation with Alison Kuo

March 29, 2022, 6–7:30pm

Installation view of exhibition. You can see a series of 20 books 5 feet tall and in the back a series of 8 posters on rice sack with blue, red, and yellow stamp letters.

Lizania Cruz, Gathering Evidence: Santo Domingo & New York City, 2021, books, posters on rice sacks with stamp letters, installation view at CUE Art Foundation, 2021. Photo by Adam Reich.

A photograph of a light-skinned Black woman with short, curly brown hair standing facing the camera. She is on a city sidewalk in between a brightly colored bodega and a check-cashing store. The woman is wearing a mid-length skirt, a button-down shirt, and a trench coat, all in varying shades of blue; red shoes; a red and blue face mask; and small, oval-shaped sunglasses. She carries a brown briefcase in her left hand.

Lizania Cruz, ¡Se Buscan Testigos! [Looking for Witnesses!] Portrait of a Detective in NYC, 2021, photographic documentation of happening, 30 × 20 in. (76.2 × 50.8 cm). Photo by Neha Gautam.

Public happening of We the News newsstand. Newsstand by of wood with colorful zines on the corner of the street. Three people gather outside

Lizania Cruz, Happening We the News, 2018, public intervention, dimensions variable.

Installation view of photography of Maria — Flower for Immigration. Photograph of flower arrangement on black background

Lizania Cruz, Maria — Flower for Immigration, 2017, archival digital-C print, 144 × 96 in. (365.76 × 243.84 cm).

Installation of black wall with titled of the piece Obituaries of the American Dream along with newspaper print to take away

Lizania Cruz, Obituaries of the American Dream, 2020-2021, installation view at El Museo del Barrio's “ESTAMOS BIEN – LA TRIENAL 20/21” , dimensions variable.