2020 Residents

January 16 - Present

Through the machinations of writing, Annas' 2020 collaborative residency asks:

How does collaboration span across distance, and how is writing a tool to understand these possibilities? To live this question, our new cohort includes Here Residents, folks living and working in Chicago, and There Residents, folks based outside of Illinois.

Starting in January 2020, Annas' Here Residents include Logan Kruidenier, Gabriel Chaflin-Piney, Marline Johnson, and Zachary Nicol. There Residents include Willy Smart (Davis, CA) and Daniele Vickers (Hamilton, MT).

Introductions and meetings began pre-pandemic; collaborative writing exercises and correspondence continued in its midst. Over the course of nine months, the six makers learned about one another — their practices, perspectives, and intersections. Webs of creative interaction through phone calls, emails, and letters sustained the cohort through the spring and summer.

Meanwhile, Burke and Koch tested different administrative structures which could facilitate sustained discussion and creation across distance and time while also being mindful of the capacity and energy of the residents as all reckoned with the uneven and ever-shifting ground of 2020. What emerged is A Chorus for Six Voices, a score in printed form and audio constructions that capture six retellings of multiversal narrative. Devised in an iterative process of writing and recording, the project threads the group’s sonic and visual fragments into a collection of distinct harmonies, offering a vision of how collective output can function across time and distance.

Gabriel Chalfin-Piney is an artist and organizer, with a background in performance and exhibition-making for artists and nonprofits. He is currently finishing his graduate degree in Arts Administration and Policy at SAIC. His recent curatorial projects include Jess Bass’s Plant Feeder at INCUBATOR and Aida Ramirez's performance Up and Leave across the Chicago Park District. Gabriel's performance practice pulls from oral history, family-meal-style eating, and meditation, prompting audience members to participate as co-creators. He has shown work at the Dorsky Museum, Panoply Lab, High Concept Labs, and Grace Exhibition Space.

Marline Johnson is an African-American artist, whose work in centered on the notion of making “the invisible” visible, through spoken word, photography and mosaic making. She uses these mediums to create spaces where she can foster critical dialogue with her audience around the challenging nature of racial and gender inequality by awakening complex issues that many would prefer remain mute. Her work addresses the small acts of racial and gender oppression that have become embedded within our culture today.  

Marline is an artist and activist who obtained her masters degree in Art Therapy from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).  Since Graduating form SAIC, Marline is committed to working in the fields related to youth development, leadership development and community engagement while simultaneously cultivating her art practice centered on eliminating gender-based violence against women's and girls. 

Logan Kruidenier is a multimedia artist, currently based in Chicago.  He received his BFA from Chico State, and spent his final year studying abroad at the Kunsthochschule Mainz, in Mainz, Germany. In 2019 he received an MFA in Printmedia from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Logan’s work has been displayed throughout the US, Canada and Germany.  He has produced a number of pop-up exhibitions in Chicago. He is also the creator and host of the “Doodle Jam!”, a free, ongoing drawing workshop, which has been featured in a variety of venues, such as the Chicago Publishers Resource Center, the Twin Cities Zine Fest, and the Chicago Alternative Comics Festival.  He loves drawing animals.

Zachary Nicol constructs texts across media that address scrutiny, identification, illegibility, and presentation. Their performance, writing, video, and print work have been presented in Chicago, Portland, Toronto, and online. They work frequently as a collaborative and performing artist in dance, theatre, and film. Their recent contributions include projects with Mlondi Zondi, Aram Atamian, Kim Brandt, Alexandra Pirici, Jonas Becker, Ginger Krebs, Elise Cowin, Catherine Sullivan, and Anna Martine Whitehead, among others. Nicol lives and works in Chicago. 

Daniele Vickers is an interdisciplinary artist who completed her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018. Daniele utilizes photography, video, sculpture, bookmaking, and writing in her work. Her practice weaves in and out of the religious institutions of her upbringing, while seeking to propose other ways of looking and knowing. Daniele is currently teaching art at the elementary and college levels in Hamilton, MT.