(58) Open Studios & Readings

Ania Freer is an award winning Australian-Jamaican artist, filmmaker, cultural researcher, and curator based between New York City and Jamaica. Working in installation, film and curating, Ania uses oral histories to explore identity through themes of resistance, labor, folklore, craft traditions, race and class. Her films work to disrupt imperialist narratives and recenter marginalized voices. Ania’s video installations have been exhibited at the National Gallery of Jamaica and her short film “Strictly Two Wheel,” won Best Documentary Short at Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. She has received fellowships from the Caribbean Film Academy, New Local Space Kingston and scholarships from the American Australian Association Arts Fund. She has participated in residencies at Art Omi, Ox-Bow and Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE). Her work has been featured in Jamaica Journal, Forgotten Lands and DIZZY Magazine. Ania’s documentary series Real Talk, an intimate collection of video portraits from across Jamaica, are housed at the Black Film Centre and Archive: Indiana University Bloomington. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Film Theory from the University of Sydney.

Simon Han is the author of the novel Nights When Nothing Happened (Riverhead), which was named a best book of the year by TIME, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, and Texas Monthly. His short stories and essays have been published in The Atlantic, Aperture, Virginia Quarterly Review, Guernica, and elsewhere. He's received residency fellowships from MacDowell, Willapa Bay-AiR, Jentel, the Toji Cultural Center, and Norton Island. He lives in Medford, MA and teaches at Tufts University.

Elina Alter is a writer, translator, and editor based in New York. Her translations from Russian include Alla Gorbunova's It's the End of the World, My Love, and Oksana Vasyakina's Wound, as well as an upcoming collection by Gorbunova. She edits Circumference, a magazine of translation.

Huidi Xiang is a sculptor based in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University (2021) and a BA in Architecture and Studio Art from Rice University (2018). In her practice, Huidi reimagines and recreates symbols and scenarios of popular media to propose alternative forms and narratives to late capitalism. Huidi’s works have been exhibited internationally by X Museum Triennial (Beijing, China), OCAT Biennale (Shenzhen, China), YveYANG Gallery (New York, NY, USA), Tutu Gallery (Brooklyn, NY, USA), KAJE (Brooklyn, NY, USA), Contemporary Calgary (Calgary, Canada), and more. Huidi has also participated in numerous artist residencies, including the Bronx Museum of the Arts AIM fellowship, the NARS Foundation International Residency Program, the ACRE Residency Program, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.