Studio 176 is a collective of artists based in Greensboro, NC. The collective runs a record label (lead by Justin Demeanor Harrington and Antion Scales), a production studio (lead by Alexei Mejouev) and philanthropic ventures (lead by Savannah Thorne).

Vickie Aravindhan is a queer Indian-Chinese Singaporean artist, curator, big eater, and sometimes singer based in Los Angeles exploring the ramifications of assimilation and hybridization as a result of colonial diaspora and the functions of myth as history, codes and truth. She mainly works with, video, installation and sculpture. Never opposed to play, experimenting, dialogue and building community.

Lexy Ho-Tai is a multi-discplinary visual artist and teaching artist, interested in the intersection between art-making and making the world a better place. She disrupts the exclusive and elitist tendencies of the art world by working in non-traditional art spaces, repurposing discarded and recycled materials, collaborating with artists working across multiple disciplines, and engaging with diverse audiences. Through soft sculptures, performance, installation, murals, and workshops, her public and participatory practice employs humor, play, and absurdity to invite viewers to contemplate pressing social and environmental issues. She believes that joy is a radical act of resistance, and that play forges a powerful space for audiences to envision and work towards alternative futures.

Abigail Rothman (b. 1997, Phoenix, Arizona) is a multidisciplinary artist and activist exploring subversion. Her work challenges and critiques tradition within society, art history, and its political and social manifestations. Through digital and physical abstraction pre-existing content is removed from its’ original context, existing as objects and realities the viewer must confront.  Acknowledging and altering the relationship between people and these scenarios confronts the conventional understanding and priorities of traditional art making processes. In turn, questioning the social transparency and accessibility of knowledge as a reflection of extreme political and social hierarchies. 

Oree Holban is a visual-installation artist, a performer, and a singer-songwriter. He likes to play with words, plasticine, and create childlike-neon-Rock’n’Roll-meditative worlds. His work is very much inspired by nostalgic American 50s of the previous century, Buddhist life and aesthetics in queer present time, and the Fabulous 50s of the 21st Century. He would like to share his ongoing colorful journey with others, explore hidden truths and transcend together the barriers of our own bodies and minds. 

Based in Vienna, Austria, OMAi and the Tagtool Crew lead public art projection events and collaborative light painting workshops around the world.

Markus Dorninger is a digital artist and designer. His work comprises projection interventions as well as stage performances. He invented Tagtool to bring to life the images that inhabit our imagination.

Josef Dorninger is a true-to-the-game Tagtoolista who takes care of business at OMAi. With his extensive experience as youth worker and workshop leader, he explores the educational benefits of creative projectionism.

Matthias Fritz is an active VJ who joined forces with the Dorninger brothers. As a versatile visualist with a strong community focus, he has taught Tagtool to thousands around the world.

William Plummer is fascinated by the way objects can reflect culture, and by extension, a sense of place and belonging. As a gender non-binary individual with American and Taiwanese heritage, they live an experience that falls between standard lines of definition. Their most recent work concerns generational archive, using laborious processes such as beading and weaving to both celebrate lineage and mitigate cultural dissonance.

Mahedi Anjuman is on a journey to find her authentic artistic self through a contemporary avant-garde way. Currently she is living Reno, NV. She was born in Bangladesh, the land of the mystics. Anjuman was selected to represent Bangladeshi contemporary art in an International Contemporary Sculpture and Installation Exhibition OPEN 15 in Italy with artist Yoko Ono (2012). She was accepted to participate in an artist residency program with Transart Institute in 2013 and Picture Berlin in 2018 in Germany. She is researching on contemporary conceptual art related with existential philosophy and experimenting sculpture, video art and performance art. She is curious about being’s psychological impact on action-reaction.

Craig Deppen Auge is an artist currently residing in Kansas City, Missouri. His works explore the relationship between material, shape, color, gesture, mark-making, site and self. He merges and flows between collage, alternative bookmaking, salvage assemblage, and impromptu public intervention. Ephemeral, formal explorations reflect through-lines of self, and potentially activate collective deja-vu. Craig previously attended the ON::VIEW Residency at Sulfur Studios in Savannah, GA. He is a 2019-2020 Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Resident in Kansas City

David Alpert is an artist and curator living and working in Kansas City. He likes interactions, connections, and exploring feelings. He believes in listening compassionately to yourself and others. Through a visual dialogue, he promotes and researches his interests and beliefs.

Sophie Sanders’ paintings, prints, and fiber works use gesture and iconic imagery to convey the inner potency and tenacity of her subjects. In recent works, she visualizes a space of feminist sanctuary, where individuals can find a sense of restoration and rejuvenation. Other works explore interconnectivity through the visual metaphor of a mandala, the human eye, and brain.

Charis Fleshner is a mixed media visual artist who calls Colorado home, along with Goober cat, the best and worst studio assistant ever. Charis was accepted into University of New Mexico's MFA program under painting and drawing but rebelled against categorization and fell in love with soft sculpture there instead. She is inspired by the middle schoolers she currently teaches art and fiber arts to, color, play, fabric, and intersectional feminism.

Mia Cinelli is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, and educator. Driven by curiosity and informed by design methodologies, her practice produces a variety of creative outcomes— including digital typefaces, discursive objects, public installations, and sewn sculptures. In all of her work, she is most interested in designing experiences which engender meaningful interactions and discussions. She’s fascinated by language, longing, history, gesture, and corporeality.

Cara Hagan is a mover, maker, writer, curator, champion of just communities, and a dreamer. She believes in the power of art to upend the laws of time and physics. In her work, no object or outcome is sacred; but the ritual to get there is.

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

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.

Nicole Asselin is a textile artist and educator based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her work explores the intersection of craft, technology and the natural world. Asselin’s practice is narrative, telling the story of an object or material and its potential, both real and imagined. Her work utilizes magnification, abstraction, hyper-local material, and a hybrid digital/analog approach to making. She addresses and challenges themes of locality, tradition, innovation, handcraft, and sustainability.