Photo: Bryce Krynski

Alana Bartol is a site-responsive artist and educator whose interdisciplinary practice investigates ecological relationships, ritual, and communication across species and elements. Drawing on a lineage of water witches, Alana’s work weaves divination, dreaming, and sensory experiences to explore human-nature connections in a time of ecological crisis. Humor, playfulness, and curiosity are key elements of their practice, often used to disrupt expectations and provoke reflection. Their projects critically examine extractive industries, interspecies relationships, and the material and symbolic ties between humans and more-than-human worlds. Long-listed for Canada’s Sobey Art Award (2019, 2021), Alana has exhibited at galleries and festivals in Germany, Hong Kong, Belgium, Romania, Argentina, Turkey, Colombia, Mexico, the U.S.A., and across Canada. Based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary, Canada) on Treaty 7 territory, they are an Assistant Professor at Alberta University of the Arts. During the ARCUS Research residency, Alana will explore interspecies communication, focusing on Japanese honeybees, solitary bees, and native plants. This work reflects an interest in sensory and material processes that challenge human-centered perspectives, offering pathways to understanding ecological interconnections.
www.alanabartol.com

Joey Fauerso is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, video and performance. Her subject matter is both personal and political, and centers on family, gender, humor, figuration and representation. Recently her work has been exhibited at the Western Exhibitions Gallery, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, MASS MoCA, Crystal Bridges Museum, and the Drawing Center in New York. Fauerso has been the recipient of multiple grants, including a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2020 Joan Mitchell Grant, and a 2021 Sustainable Arts Foundation grant. She has participated in multiple residencies, including Yaddo, MacDowell, and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien. Fauerso is a Professor at Texas State University and lives in San Antonio, Texas with her family. During her time at Arcus, Fauerso will work on a series of short videos incorporating animation and improvisation. she will also research the Japanese dance form Butoh and the Gutai art movement.
www.joeyfauerso.com

Daryl Li is a writer of literary fiction and nonfiction whose work focuses on themes on memory, identity, trauma, and storytelling. He is the author of two books of essays―The Inventors (Rosetta Cultures, 2023) and Tenderly, Tenderly (Atomic Bohemian, 2024)―and a book of short fiction―Minor Illusions (Querencia Press, forthcoming). His work has been longlisted for the Australian Book Review Calibre Essay Prize and Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, and has also been a finalist in The Georgia Review Prose Prize. In 2024, he participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. During his time at ARCUS, he plans to undertake research and fieldwork for a literary book focusing on Japanese cinema. Engaging with other writers and artists, while also exploring hybrid possibilities, the project explores themes such as film history, aesthetics, otherness, memory, and translation.

Jazeela Basheer an exhibition designer and graduate of the National Institute of Design, India, has worked across theatre, museums, and galleries. Her practice spans spatial planning, installation design, photography, and publication design. In 2021, Jazeela co-founded a visual research practice Around The Sufrah that documents the stories of Muslim women in Kerala through oral narratives, memory and culinary practices. One of the projects by Around the Sufrah was a digital archive of Muslim women writings from early 20th century, supported by the Shergil-Sundaram Arts Foundation and Asia Art Archive Research grant. In 2024, she co-curated an exhibition Reading Rumours, based on the archive with the support of a research grant from the India Foundation of the Arts. During her time at ARCUS, she will be investigating the evolution of Ikat and the cultural, societal, and emotional significance of the textile situating it within the context of contemporary Japanese fashion movements.

Photo: Kato Hajime

Minwoo Lee is an artist and educator working primarily with photography and lens-based media. His practice deconstructs ocularcentrism to renegotiate its Eurocentric perception in photography and to reimagine the language of the camera outside of vision. He has exhibited at the Seoul Museum of Art, De Appel Amsterdam, Incheon Art Platform, Art Gallery of Guelph, Katzman Contemporary (Toronto), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, with curatorial projects at InterAccess (Toronto). Lee has participated in the residency program at the Seoul Museum of Art, Paradise AIR, Incheon Art Platform, and the Banff Centre. He is also a recipient of Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and Paula Riff Award from Center for Photographic Arts. During his residency, Lee will explore the relationship between photographic image and the fold as part of his ongoing research relating to mobility and immobility in migration.
www.minwlee.com

JL Murtaugh (Liam) is an artist, curator, writer, and consultant. Originally from Chicago, he is currently the curator of residencies and public programmes at Rupert in Vilnius, Lithuania. Since 2014, he also uses the alias of Syndicate; a liquid, nomadic contemporary art platform producing exhibitions, events, and publications with long-term collaborators. He was formerly the artistic director of Autarkia, Vilnius (2020–23); and the director of Tenderpixel, London (2012–14). Liam studied at Goldsmiths College, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and Columbia College, Chicago, following previous education in architecture and design. Invisible labour and service economies are common motifs for his projects, guided by his professional experience as an individual, initiator, entrepreneur, and employee. While at ARCUS, Liam will compile interviews and essays for a forthcoming book. Additionally, he will continue his research on adaptive reuse prototypes and the utility of disaffection.
www.jlmurtaugh.com/syndkt.com

Photo: Rhett Hammerton

Peta Rake is a curator and writer based in Brisbane, Australia. Her creative practice is currently attentive to transdisciplinary conversations focussed on blue research, working closely with artists and scientists to understand the psycho-social, political and gendered dimensions of oceanic spaces. Peta is currently the Director and Senior Curator at University of Queensland Art Museum (UQ Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia). Previously she was Director of Visual Arts Residencies and Curator of Walter Phillips Gallery/Banff International Curatorial Institute (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Minhrpa/Banff, Canada). While at ARCUS, Peta will undertake blue humanities research―with particular attention to Japanese contemporary art and curatorial models―for a forthcoming publication for the collaborative multi-year project Blue Assembly.
www.petarake.com

Karolina Wysocka is a Polish visual artist based in Barcelona, working in printmaking, ceramics, installation, and photography. Her work, rich in references to natural forms, is grounded in a critical exploration of ecology, capitalism, social norms, and interspecies community. Her art has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at Pulchri Gallery in The Hague, Sculpture Center in New York, Centre for Contemporary Art Łaźnia in Gdańsk, Arsenal Gallery and Stary Browar in Poznań, Cascada ArtSpace in Barcelona, and Studio Tsukimisou in Kyoto. At ARCUS, she will focus on her “Benibana: Nomadic and Collective Patchwork” project, combining research on the cultural, social, and political significance of red kimono linings with the facilitation of sewing workshops. Together with members of the local community, she will create a large-scale patchwork that will continue to grow as she travels through Japan.
https://www.karolinawysocka.com/

Pedro Batista is a painter whose work explores emotional states through color, form, and light. His process is intuitive, allowing images to emerge, transform, or disappear organically. He has exhibited in institutions such as the Museum of Natural History and Science in Lisbon with Chasing Clouds (2015) and Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações with Fill in the Blanks (2019). His experience also includes residencies such as Blank 100 in Portugal (2024), and Villa Lena in Tuscany (2020), both of which broadened his approach to painting and materiality. During his ARCUS residency, Pedro will immerse himself in the contrasts between presence and absence within an image, reflecting on how time, memory, and perception shape visual language. He will explore how imagery can hold meaning beyond cultural boundaries, deepening his approach to painting as a dynamic, evolving process.
www.pedrobatista.com

Lena Bergendahl is a visual artist who works primarily with short films and video installations, weaving together stories and materials from different places and times to construct a new space that exists between these points. Fictitious scenarios are combined with documentary and archival material in installations that integrate video, sculpture, prints, and sound. Bergendahl has recently exhibited at Ystads Konstmuseum, Ystad, SE (2024), Gislaveds Konsthall, Gislaved, SE (2024), Vermilion Sands, Copenhagen, DK (2022), and Galleri Format, Malmö, SE (2021). In 2023, she was an artist-in-residence at IASPIS, Stockholm, and in 2021, she received the Edstrandska Stiftelsen Scholarship. During her residency at ARCUS, she will develop material for a new film project in which origami shapes and kites symbolize thoughts on life and death, species extinction, and a form of escape from certain states. This will include research on origami and a visit to the Enshu Yokosuka Kite Festival.
www.lenabergendahl.se

Moving across photography, sound, installation, and writing, the work of Emil Sandström tends to notions of speculation and circulation, probing the infrastructures that choreograph systems of affective exchange and help shape power relations between bodies and architecture. During a residency at ARCUS he will further his research on Kankyō Ongaku and histories of Japanese experimental music, to think along how intertwined sonic and economic landscapes reflect broader political imaginaries. Utilizing archival research, field recording, live signal processing and generative sound installations to further interrogate the junctions of sound design and commercial ideology that form our collective experiences of listening. Recent presentations include Alta Art Space, Malmö (SE), Kunsthal Kongegaarden, Korsør (DK) and Oslo Kunstforening (NO), all in 2024. Sandström was a co-founder and coordinator of the independent exhibition platform Canopy in Malmö (2020–2022). In 2025, he was a resident at the Cité Internationale des arts in Paris (FR).
https://tenderassets.com/