Which Bridges to Cross and Which to Burn
The Black Femme Residency is pleased to announce a residency and exhibition for the artists
Ayana Evans and Tsedaye Makonnen
The Inaugural Black Femme Residency + Exhibition
In May of 2021, Ayana Evans and Tsedaye Makonnen were announced as the inaugural artists for The Black Femme Residency, founded by independent writer and curator, Douglas Everett Turner. Which Bridges to Cross and Which to Burn is the artists’ next iteration of their collaborative performance practice, which demands space, recognition, and respect, alongside other Black feminist work.
The Residency collaborates with various arts organizations to create a robust residency program for marginalized artists. Housing and studio space for The Black Femme Residency was generously provided by Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY); a virtual studio visit was funded and broadcast by the Center for Performance Research (Brooklyn, NY); wardrobe and stage access were provided by Warner Theatre, in Torrington Connecticut.
Public performances were hosted by the Wassaic Project at their summer exhibition opening, Warner Theatre, and Standard Space Gallery. Gallery founder and photographer, Theo Coulombe, took Performative Portraiture of the artists in and around Dutchess County, NY, and Litchfield County, CT.
These images, and two works by photographer Dominique Duroseau, are the works presented by the gallery.
AYANA EVANS
Ayana Evans
Ayana Evans is a NYC based artist. Evans received her MFA in painting from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her BA in Visual Arts from Brown University. In 2015 she received the Jerome Foundation's Theater and Travel & Study Grant for artistic research abroad. During the summer of 2016 Evans completed her installment of the residency, "Back in Five Minutes" at El Museo Del Barrio in NYC. The next year she completed a 10 hour endurance based, citywide performance and 100 person performative dinner party in the Barnes Foundation museum (free and open to the public) during the Spring of 2017 for "A Person of the Crowd” which was a major performance art survey featuring artists such as, Marina Abramovic, Tania Bruguera and William Pope L. in Philadelphia, PA. Her international work includes participation in: FIAP performance festival in Martinique, The Pineapple Show at Tiwani Contemporary in London, and Ghana's Chale Wote festival which drew 30,000 people. Evans was a 2018 Fellow in the Studio Immersion Program at EFA’s Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, as well as a 2018 resident and grant recipient at Artists Alliance Inc (NYC), 2017-2018 awardee of the Franklin Furnace Fund for performance art (one of the highest awards in performance art within the United States), 2018 New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA) Fellow for Interdisciplinary Arts, 2019 artist in resident for Art on the Vine at Martha's Vineyard. In addition to her numerous guerilla street performances, Evans has performed at the Queens Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, Newark Museum, and the Bronx Museum. During 2018 and 2019 Evans completed her first three solo exhibitions with Medium Tings Gallery (Brooklyn), Cuchifritos Gallery (NYC) and the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop with New Art Dealers Alliance(NADA) at Governors Island, NY and in 2021 she became a Jerome Hill Fellow. Most recently Evans completed a 2021 residency at Yaddo. Evans has also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Vermont Studio Center. Her recent press includes: The New York Times, Bomb Magazine, ArtNet, New York Magazine's The Cut, Hyperallergic, and CNN. Evans is currently an adjunct professor at Brown University.
TSEDAYE MAKONNEN
Tsedaye Makonnen
Tsedaye Makonnen is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, researcher and cultural producer, whose studio, practice threads together her identity as a Black mother, birthworker and a daughter of Ethiopian immigrants. Makonnen primarily focuses on migration and intersectional feminism; using light, shadow, reflection, fractals, embodiment, movement and collaboration as materials. Her intention is to create a spiritual network around the globe that aims to re-calibrate the energy towards something positive and life affirming. Makonnen is the recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. She has performed at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel Miami, Art on the Vine (Martha's Vineyard), Chale Wote Street Art Festival (Ghana), El Museo del Barrio, Fendika Cultural Center (Ethiopia), Festival International d'Art Performance (Martinique), Queens Museum, the Smithsonian's and more. Her light sculptures have been exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, UNTITLED Art Fair and are currently being acquired by the Smithsonian for their permanent collection. She has been featured in the NYTimes, Vogue, BOMB, Hyperallergic, Artnet, Artsy, and more. Her recent exhibitions include 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, Park Avenue Armory, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Momentary and Art Dubai. This Spring she is publishing a book with Washington Project for the Arts, exhibiting at the Walters Art Museum as a Sondheim Prize Finalist, in a collaborative artist residency with Ayana Evans (in partnership with CPR, Wassaic Projects and Standard Space gallery), this summer she will be in a group exhibition at CFHill gallery in Stockholm, Sweden and this Fall she will join the Clark Art Institute as their inaugural Futures Fellow. Makonnen is represented by Addis Fine Art and currently lives in DC with her 10 year old son.Partners
Video: "Inserting Ourselves," 2019, edited by Eva Yuma, performed in collaboration with Tsedaye Makonnen, Oak Bluffs, MA. This art video is a documentation of performance interventions. We completed this video while in residency on the Vineyard during 2019. This imagery was shot over a 30 day period. We repeatedly visited the Reliable Grocery Store, Inkwell beach, Tabernacle Stage, and the clearing near Shearer Cottage. This was done while thinking of borders but also space and small social restrictions we often adhere to that are not necessary. We brought together objects and fabrics from our individual practices & travels, including using the African fabric we brought from our collaboration in Ghana in 2017.