(70) Artist Talks

Sam Shoemaker is an interdisciplinary artist working in collaboration with living fungi. His projects include large scale structures grown from mycelium composites, including a boat made from a single wild mushroom that he used to paddle 26.5 miles across the Catalina Channel. His work has been shown at Craft Contemporary, Fulcrum Arts, California African American Museum, Vielmetter, Armory Center for the Arts, and OCHI, and featured in the Guardian, W Magazine, and Los Angeles Times. He lives and works in Los Angeles and leads mushroom cultivation workshops throughout Southern California.

Avigayl Sharp is the author of the novel Offseason (Astra House, May 2026) and the forthcoming story collection Animals After Dark. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and fellowships from Yaddo and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, among others. Originally from Chicago, she currently lives in Brooklyn.

Beatriz Chachamovits is an environmental artist and educator from São Paulo, Brazil, living and working in Miami, Florida. Her work explores the beauty and fragility of marine ecosystems through ceramic sculptures, drawings, and installations that merge natural history with speculative mythologies. By highlighting the intricate forms of underwater life, she invites deeper reflection on our impact and responsibility toward ocean conservation.

​Selected solo exhibitions include “Into the Great Dying: Waters We Share” at Faena Art Project Room in Miami, Florida (2022), and “Into the Great Dying: Roles We Play” at the Museum of Contemporary Art of North Miami, Florida (2023) and “ Meet me in the clearing between the waves” an early career survey at Miami Design District in Miami, Florida (2024). Selected group exhibitions include the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, “Coral Expedition: 1865 - 2018” (2018), the Art and Cultural Center of Hollywood, Florida, “C[h]oral Stories and Collective Actions” (2022), and The Baker Museum, Naples “Entangled in the mangroves” (2025).

​Chachamovits has received fellowships to attend residencies at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts and Penland School of Craft. She is the recipient of Oolite Arts’ The Ellies Awards (2023 and 2026) and was commissioned by the City of Miami Beach for the Elevate Española public art project (2023). Her work has been featured in Vogue Magazine’s “Earth and Us” section, Arte Al Día, and the National Geographic Education platform as part of an AAAS grant to teach fifth graders about women in marine science. She is currently a resident artist at The Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood, Miami.

Sought after for her “radiant” (The New York Times) performances full of “tremendous heart, bringing joy and a captivating sound to the stage” (The Strad), Karen Ouzounian is an acclaimed cellist and composer who creates music from a deeply personal place. She has appeared as a soloist in venues including the Konzerthaus Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Kölner Philharmonie, Tonhalle Düsseldorf and Carnegie Hall, championing a remarkable breadth of music with fierce commitment and emotional power. An omnivorous musical spirit who “powerfully shatters pigeonholes with her artistic partners” (Ravinia Magazine), she has premiered numerous works and collaborated with some of the most singular musicians of our time, including Rhiannon Giddens, Augustin Hadelich and Kayhan Kalhor. She is a member of the Silkroad Ensemble and The Knights, has appeared at the Marlboro, Ojai, Caramoor and Ravinia festivals, and was the founding cellist of the Aizuri Quartet for eleven years, earning a GRAMMY nomination, major chamber music prizes on three continents, and serving as the MetLiveArts String Quartet-in-Residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is currently touring "Mayrig" (“mother” in Armenian), an intimate show for cello with electronics, piano and vocals, and in 2024 premiered "Dear Mountains," her co-composed work with Lembit Beecher for chorus, solo cello, oud and percussion. Recent commissions include works for the Silkroad Ensemble, Salt Bay Chamberfest, and the Cello Teaching Repertoire Consortium, and during her residency at Lighthouse Works she will be writing a string quartet commissioned by the Aeolus Quartet. Karen holds Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees from Juilliard, where she was a student of Timothy Eddy, and a Post-Baccalaureate Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music. Born to Lebanese-Armenian parents in Toronto, she resides in New York City with her husband, composer and animator Lembit Beecher.