If you’ve tried to sign up for the Artist Cohorts and find that it is full – please email mhagewood@centrum.org to be placed on the waiting list. Thanks!

Centrum Artist Cohorts

Somewhere in between a crit group, a reading group and a coffee date with your friends, Centrum Artist Cohorts are a way to gather, get feedback on your work and ideas, keep you company, and further your creative thinking during times of physical distancing. Taking place over eight weeks, facilitators will organize virtual meet-ups, space for sharing work and ideas, and guiding questions to move the group towards community and individual goals.

Why are you doing this?

This program grew out of a conversation between our Emerging Artist Alumnx and the Residency Program Manager who observed a need for space where artists could support each other with the mental, emotional, and social back-up that the creative process often craves. In the absence of opportunities like residencies and structured gatherings that help give form to creative thinking and development, we looked at models of virtual critiques, book clubs, and cocktail hours that were helping to fill the gap during social distancing. Even beyond a pandemic, we believe this model can help build community and provide a collective yet individualized support system.  

How does it work?

1. Get to know our cohort facilitators by perusing their bios and descriptions of how they’ll facilitate the group. 
2. Find your vibe and submit your preferences for who you’d like to work with via our online registration form.
3. Once signed up with a cohort, your facilitator will organize introductions, a schedule, and a system for communication that works for the whole group. Each group will meet a minimum of 3 times over video, and will use shared online documents to provide further spaces for feedback and dialogue. 

What does it cost?

This is currently being offered for free!

When does this happen?

Depending on the cohort, you’ll start in mid or late June. Facilitators will list their date ranges in their descriptions. 

How many people get to participate?

Each group is limited to a total of 5 people, including the facilitator. Priority registration given to Centrum Emerging Artist Resident alumnx until June 22nd. Additional sign-ups will be first come first served.

What if it fills and I can’t join?

We will put you on a waiting list and let you know when we are doing it again! Email mhagewood@centrum.org to be put on a wait list or to be notified about future opportunities like this one. 

Where do I sign up? 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CMXHG85

COHORT FACILITATORS

Jaleesa Johnston
June 29-August 24, 2020

Jaleesa Johnston is an interdisciplinary artist currently living and working in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work explores the black female body as both subject and material through performance, video, photography, sculpture and collage. She has been the recipient of the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency and Open Signal’s New Media Fellowship. Her background as an educator and as an arts program organizer informs Jaleesa’s commitment to centering artists, echoing through her eagerness to co-create a space that serves the cohort’s needs and fosters meaningful dialogue.

Satpreet Kahlon
June 29-August 24th

I am a Seattle-based artist, curator, and educator who is interested in exploring ideas of community-centered futurist modes of working through the acknowledgement that most artmaking is happening within an arts industry that prioritizes commodification and hegemonic palatability.

If the arts industry benefits from the watering down and censorship of historically marginalized ideologies, ever-growing socioeconomic disparities, and a power dynamic that will always put working artists below administrators, gallerists, collectors, and boards – and we are a part of that arts industry – how do we move forward in a way that makes space for ‘ambition’ while minimizing our complicity within these systems? Is that even feasible?

I don’t actually know the answer, but I am interested in facilitating conversation, dialogue, and critique with a group of folks who are interested in exploring these ideas through a series of readings, group discussions, and structured critiques that focus on generosity and acknowledging subjectivity while minimizing performative knowledge sharing and prescriptive feedback. 

The structure of the group will be responsive and flexible as our needs and wants change and become more focused.

Marilyn Montufar
June 29-August 24

Marilyn Montufar is a visual artist, educator, and arts administrator. She was awarded a teaching fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center at Green Mountain Tech & Career Center. A passionate educator with a focus on social justice, she is also the co-creator of the youth photography exchange program Beyond Borders. An exchange between students in Mexico and the United States that exhibited at the Tamayo Museum’s Education Center in Mexico City in 2019. Montufar is currently an arts administrator and photography instructor for the collaborative photo-storytelling project Through Positive Eyes, created to end stigma against individuals living with HIV and AIDS which is traveling to Seattle in 2021.

Marilyn Montufar uses photography to advocate for and inspire social change. She was born in Los Angeles, California and received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York, New York. Inspired by the diverse lifestyles that surface in major metropolitan areas, Montufar is primarily interested in documenting the transitions inherent in human relationships through the practice of portraiture and in exploring the ever-evolving urban and natural landscape.

This group will focus on sharing our collective experiences as artists, art administrators, freelancers, and creative entrepreneurs during this unprecedented time. All are welcome for an opportunity to gather for an honest and open conversation about art-making during a global pandemic. Expect to touch upon topics such as revolutionary art, Black Lives Matter, and challenges in creating and exhibiting art during Covid-19.
This will be a safe space to share thoughts, ideas, and your art. Although not a requirement, you will be encouraged to share your story as a creative individual- who you are, your inspirations, and what are next steps for yourself- in order to support each other in this quick and fluctuating time in the arts.