American Fulbrighters to Poland 2023-24

Who I am:

I am a visual artist and educator at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I am inspired by personal histories and attachments to unachievable and necessary-for-survival fantasies, to further investigate communal formations and transformations. I work through photographic series where images are anchored in historical events,and use formal interests in lighting, color, movement and gesture to connect individual images to unimaginable bodies of work. I received my MFA from Yale University, and a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from Loyola University.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

In my visual research project, Underground, photographs engage with coal mining communities in the USCB region in Poland  through a fractal view and attempt to identify patterns in the interplay between gender and social status mobility:sustained through the overlapping issues of industrialization, the current energy crisis, climate change and occupation. As Poland continues to diversify its economy and establish employment alternatives to coal, this project captures the existing architecture of coal mines, their transformation into iconic infrastructure, and the formation of contemporary female identity within heavy industry in Poland. 

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because my project continues to grow in ambition and opportunities. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in Poland will allow me to work without restrictions and complete my project in 10 months. Coal continues to be a significant energy source and mining has always been an honorable job that provides a good income for women and their families. I am excited by the possibility of expanding upon the history of mining in the USCB region and its iconic architecture. Completing this  project will strengthen the foundation of my art practice and expand my expertise through new ways of connecting to my Polish American identity.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

After completing my Fulbright, I will continue to study the various implications of working in the medium of photography: political, historical, philosophical, cultural, and ethical issues that continue to shift and re-define the medium. Through exhibiting Underground in community-minded institutions and museums, I will initiate a complex discourse on coal mining, as well as give presentations on my final work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Film School in Łódź. 

Who I am:

I am an associate professor of history at Iowa State University, where I teach U.S. history and train social studies teachers. I teach a variety of subjects, such as the American early republic, Iowa history, U.S. business history, and a methods class for history teachers. In 2023 I published my second book, A New History of Iowa. I was a history teacher in California before I earned my Ph.D.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

My Fulbright grant is a teaching award. I will teach a class on the history of American capitalism and a course on American political history at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. I look forward to giving talks, mentoring students, and running workshops on my teaching and research interests, such as American agricultural and rural history.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

I was a Fulbright Scholar in China in 2019 and hoped to establish long-term partnerships with schools in that country. However, bilateral relations between the U.S. and China deteriorated. I decided to pursue a Fulbright award in Poland, as I had visited the country several times to supervise student teachers from ISU and loved the country and its people.  

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

After I complete my program, I would like to build academic relationships between Adam Mickiewicz University and Iowa State. This may include study abroad programs that would broaden the education of American or Polish students. I hope to continue to collaborate with colleagues in Poland after my return to Iowa and would love to return to teach in Poland in the future.

Who I am:

I am a Professor and Director of Graduate Study for Art and Art History at Columbia College Chicago and President Emeritus of the New Media Caucus Professional Society. My creative practice is hybrid and multimodal, blurring the lines between fine, performing, and media arts, and connecting across domains of knowledge including science and technology. My artworks include installations, videos, print media, performances, operas, and net.art which have been exhibited at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Chicago Cultural Center, New Museum of Contemporary Art, La Villette, the China Academy of Art, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art. In addition, I am the author of Director’s Third Dimension (2001), a book on real-time 3D programming for interactive multimedia, and co-author of Post-Digital Printmaking: CNC, Traditional, and Hybrid Techniques (2012), a book examining the rapid evolution of traditional printmaking to incorporate industrial tools such as laser cutters and computer-controlled routers.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

Working with faculty and students at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, my project will explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies can expand the boundaries of printmaking. My project, “Printmaking in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, builds on research in my 2012 co-authored book Post-Digital Printmaking. Through teaching and research, I will work in the studio to innovate new processes combining traditional printmaking techniques with AI; create new artworks using these processes; and teach the fundamentals of these processes so students can innovate techniques and artworks of their own.Of particular interest is exploring how AI technologies can function as collaborators, assistants, and ensemble members to augment creative processes. AI is part of our environment; it is important that artists cultivate hands-on familiarity with its techniques, histories, and challenges in order to meaningfully contribute to shaping its development and impact.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

In 2016, I was invited to Poland for two weeks as a visiting professor to the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design, during which I taught an intensive workshop connecting programming, laser engraving, and traditional printmaking techniques. Though brief, the impact of that visit has been significant, resulting in a number of collaborations, exhibitions, and publications working with faculty, students, and alumni. Through a Fulbright, I hope to build on the momentum of these partnerships, and work together to make new discoveries. Artificial intelligence is a particularly complex area that raises difficult questions about the nature of creative practice and human expression. There are no easy answers when it comes to this topic. I find the breadth of investigations with new forms of creative expression in Poland to be wholly energizing, and the fullness of engagement from the community excellently suited to generating discoveries and innovations within this challenging area of research.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

The opportunity to immerse in another culture for five months will change me in profound ways. A key motivation for pursuing a Fulbright is the enriched life and expanded perspective the experience will provide. I hope to emerge with deeper connections to my international colleagues, new artworks ready for exhibition, new collaborative partners, and an expanded horizon for growth and discovery. My future goals include writing a third book to address artificial intelligence in creative practice and seeking expanded leadership positions in higher education.

Who I am:

A former professional actor, author of three scholarly books and co-editor of two more, I just retired from twenty-five years of teaching theater history, theory, and criticism, most recently at Texas Tech University I continue to teach part time and am a practicing theatre critic for New York Theatre Wire. I am contemplating my sixth book, a small part of the research for which I hope to conduct during the Fulbright period. I have served as President of the American Theatre and Drama Society and as Vice President for Publications of the American Society for Theatre Research. I divide my time between New York City and Bellows Falls, Vermont.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

My primary focus will be on teaching two classes about African American women playwrights at the University of Łódź in the Department of North American Literature and Culture, where one of my goals is to foreground the importance of production and reception in understanding plays as more than literary texts. I also propose to see and review as much live theatre as I can in Warsaw, Kracow, Gdansk, Wrocław, and obviously Łódź (among other places, as time permits), in order to hone my skills regarding theatre not always as beholden to quotidian realism as much North American theatre can be.  

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

I wanted to engage with non-American students regarding American culture and theatre.  What can I offer to help problematize and complicate received opinion about American plays – especially those by playwrights whose work is not (yet) canonical?  My own relation to received opinion about Poland was greatly complicated when I was invited to be a guest speaker at the University of Łódź in 2019. Working with young students on a staged reading of a play taught me a great deal and forced me to rethink many American theatre “truisms” I had previously taken for granted, a handful of which were overturned. I was pleased to learn that all of my cast had gone on to post-graduate study. I hope to inspire my Fulbright students, too.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

Certainly I foresee including new knowledge (new for me, at least) about Poland and Polish theatre in any future teaching. I aspire to greater credibility as a reviewer of international theatre. And I hope to be able to use my initial findings about reading in a second or third language in my proposed next book, which will be about reading as a social, educational, and neurological phenomenon – something I hope will have traction as the United States world of education retools its thinking and methods for teaching children to read.

Ex: And I hope to use my experience reading in Polish for my next proposed book, which will examine reading as a social, educational, and neurological phenomenon: something I hope will have traction as US education rethinks its thinking and methods for teaching children to read.

Who I am:

I am a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and the Director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. I am the author or co-author of eight books on the presidency, the mass media, and disinformation. I worked for ten years as a daily newspaper journalist before becoming a professor, and have lectured widely on the news media, the presidency, and elections to U.S. and international audiences. In addition, I have led government-funded reporter training programs in the Philippines, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Latvia, Armenia, and Estonia.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

I will be teaching about U.S. presidential communication at the American Studies Center of the University of Warsaw. I will be focusing on the public communication strategies of recent U.S. presidents relating to U.S. domestic and foreign policies, as well as communication efforts to shape public perceptions regarding the president’s own character. Presidential efforts to set and frame the political agenda through both direct public communication and through the mass media are some of the most important tools of presidential governance.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

As a former journalist turned political scientist who studies the media, I have participated in several political science and journalism training initiatives sponsored or funded by the U.S. government in Eastern Europe, including in programs in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Over the past several decades, Poland has played a key role in the advancement of democracy in the region, and it continues to do so by supporting Ukraine during the current crisis. These factors make Poland a key place to consider efforts by American presidents to promote democratic values in the region and to shape international perceptions of the U.S.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

This experience should allow me to teach in the U.S. with a much greater international understanding of the dynamics of presidential communication beyond the United States. In addition, I hope that my experiences during the program will lead to new opportunities to connect U.S. scholars and students with their counterparts in Poland.

Who I am:

I am a Professor of Political Science and the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama, where we offer undergraduate programs in Political Science and Criminal Justice, and a graduate program in Public Administration. My family and I moved to Mobile, AL in the summer of 2017 from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and prior to that time, I served at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. My Ph.D. is from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. My wife, Sara, and our two young daughters will be joining me on our Fulbright adventure.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

I will serve as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin for the coming academic year, October 2023 to July 2024. During this time, I look forward to offering political communication courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, interacting with faculty, serving as a mentor for students, further developing ongoing research projects, and delivering talks for academic and public audiences. It will be a very active and engaging experience.  

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

Receiving a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award is a highlight of one’s career. Fulbright awards speak to the University of South Alabama’s first core value of “Diversity and a Global Perspective,” as they open new avenues and broaden perspectives for both the awardees and for students and faculty at the home and host institutions alike. I look forward to developing and facilitating greater cultural understanding and appreciation.  

Poland is experiencing significant cultural change. The opportunity to lead undergraduate and graduate courses, to conduct timely and important research, and to learn and share experiences with students and colleagues at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University comes at an especially interesting and exciting time. 

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

The Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award represents a wonderful opportunity, with many possibilities both during and after the grant period. I look forward to strengthening connections with the University of South Alabama and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, including collaborative opportunities for faculty and students in both research and teaching. As just a few examples, I foresee expanding research networks, facilitating study abroad opportunities, and encouraging colleagues and students to pursue their own experiences through the Fulbright program. 

Who I am:

As a professor of Media and Communication at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts, I teach media studies and experiential learning courses, and I research children’s media culture from a critical/cultural studies perspective. In this work, I take an intersectional approach to exploring media representation, identity, and meaning-making.

I’ve published on these topics in peer-reviewed journals and anthologies such as Popular Communication and Children and Media Worldwide in a Time of Pandemic, and in news media such as The Washington Post. I’ve also authored two books, Growing Up With Girl Power (2012) and The Princess Problem (2014); co-authored the textbook Communication in Our Lives, 9th ed. (2024); and collaboratively edited three collections, including Cultural Studies of LEGO: More Than Just Bricks (Palgrave, 2019).  

I have a B.A. in English from Emmanuel College, an M.S. in Mass Communication from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in Mass Media and Communication from Temple University.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

The globalization of the U.S. media industry has created shared experiences and reference points across cultures, but it has also raised concerns about the consequences of U.S. cultural imperialism on a global stage. During my residency at the Jagiellonian University (JU), I will work with undergraduate and graduate students and other scholars to explore the globalization of U.S. media from an American Studies perspective:teaching classes, supporting thesis projects, expanding my media studies research agenda, and offering lectures situating U.S. media culture internationally, with special attention to the children’s media culture landscape.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

As a scholar-educator, I value the Fulbright program’s goals of facilitating exchanges of ideas between cultures and addressing shared international concerns. Poland is renowned for its high-quality degree programs and equitable educational access, and it is Eastern and Central Europe’s largest media broadcasting market. These factors, along with my home institution’s formal partnership with JU and my positive prior experiences collaborating with their faculty and students, make Poland an excellent site for cultural exchanges regarding media studies.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

After completing my Fulbright grant, I would like to collaborate with Polish scholars on media studies scholarship. I also would like to arrange study-abroad trips to Poland with my state university students–many of whom have never traveled beyond Massachusetts–and to help facilitate the exchange of Polish students to my home university as well.

Who I am:

Daniel Hess is Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Hess served as chairperson of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning from 2017 through 2022. Central to Hess’s research is addressing interactions between housing, transportation, land use, and other public concerns. He develops new pathways for understanding the complex socio-economic and ethnic landscape of cities and spatial inequalities. He also explores equal access to resources from urban neighborhoods, focusing especially on the changes affecting marginalized  groups. Hess is the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie International fellowship at the University of Tartu, Estonia and winner of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence. 

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

The research project attached to this Fulbright award will focus on exploring the urban planning system in Poland and its ability to help communities confront challenges of the delay. Key applied research projects will investigate socio-spatial change in districts with standardized housing dating from Poland’s socialist era. Mixed research methods will be used to understand changes in the socio-economic and demographic profile of residents and how neighborhood organizations attempt to renovate the neighborhoods through intervention in the built and social environments. 

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

In 2010-2011 I was a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia. It was an extremely positive experience, generating on-going relationships and projects and positively influencing my scholarship and teaching. I now apply for a second Fulbright award because I am drawn to the challenges of the large share of the housing stock in standardized apartments, and in my research I seek to understand and support efforts—government-subsidized and citizen-driven—to improve outdated socialist-era residential districts. I anticipate an equally enriching opportunity for continued professional and personal growth, cultural exchange, and deepening of international perspectives in my research about how urban design directly impacts people’s lives. 

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

Through a Fulbright award, I intend to both deepen and broaden my scholarly engagement with Central and Eastern Europe. I am eager to collaborate with faculty and students in Cracow, Poland to document and publish best practices in renovating socialist-era apartment buildings. Cracow can serve as a living laboratory for empirically informed comparative discussions of urban planning in post-socialist European and contemporary US cities. I hope that my research will be used to help citizens and elected officials better plan neighborhoods and communities and design finer urban environments. 

Who I am:

I am Associate Professor in Population Sciences at the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope Cancer Center in Los Angeles, CA. As a health geographer, I am interested in most everything to do with spatial aspects of health and I have a wide-ranging research agenda. In particular, I am passionate about merging multi-levels of health data from the microbiome and omics to biomarker outcomes, health behaviors, environmental exposures and structural racism policies. I am also interested in the use of sensor data for fine-scaled exposure measurement. 

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

My Fulbright focuses on advancing understanding and application of spatiotemporal exposure measurement in health and medical domains using global positioning system (GPS) technology. Better methods for measuring human exposures to the environment around them can help us understand how the environment impacts our health and how to design health interventions that improve access to good environments and decrease engagement with bad environments. 

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

I am eager to work with experts in the geospatial and computational domains at Adam Mickiewicz University. Also, I am originally of Polish heritage and eager to explore the country and culture with my children. 

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

Continue my research and share my findings from the Fulbright year with colleagues and the environmental epidemiology community. I also look forward to traveling in Europe with my family!

Who I am:

Dominika Laster is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of New Mexico. She holds a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University (2010). She is the “Concerning Books” Section Editor of TDR: The Drama Review (TDR) and Co-Editor of European Stages.

From 2013-2015, Dr. Laster served as the Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in the Theater Studies Program at Yale University. She was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Interdisciplinary Performance Studies at Yale (IPSY) from 2011 to 2013.

‪‬‬‬‬‬

‪Dr. Laster is the curator of Decolonial Gestures: A Symposium on Indigenous Performance (2016) and Performance in the Peripheries. She is the author of Grotowski’s Bridge Made of Memory: Embodied Memory, Witnessing and Transmission in the Grotowski Work (2016). She is the editor of Loose Screws: Nine New Plays from Poland (2015). Laster has also published articles in Performance Research, Slavic and Eastern European Performance, New Theatre Quarterly, and TDR.‬‬‬‬‬

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

My Fulbright project explores Polish-Jewish identities as articulated through cultural and artistic practices in late 20th and early 21st century Poland. Taking the year 1968 as a point of departure—a historical node around which much Polish-Jewish life of the ensuing decades consolidated—my research traces significant cultural and artistic events that shaped contemporary Jewish culture in Poland and continue to inform Polish-Jewish relations to this day. Theatre, in particular, constituted a site for the public enactment of Jewish culture and identity—a comparatively autonomous and protected sphere within the larger context of the antisemitic strains within the Polish nation-state. This project explores the diverse ways in which the creative and cultural work generated by the greatly diminished Jewish population in Poland post-1968 ensured not only the survival but the survivance of Polish Jews. Further, the project examines the recent “Jewish revival” in Poland—along with the contemporary aesthetic and cultural initiatives of Polish Jews that are integral to these developments—with an eye to the broader impact of enhancing Polish-Jewish relations both locally and globally.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

I am excited to conduct my research in-situ at the center of Polish-Jewish life in Poland. I chose Warsaw in light of easy access to relevant archives and vibrant cultural institutions such as the Esther Rachel and Ida Kamiński Jewish Theatre, POLIN Museum, Center for Yiddish Culture, and the Warsaw Theatre Academy.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

Deploying a mode of creative activity that Jerzy Grotowski called “active culture,” it is my hope that my project and time in Poland will further the Fulbright mission by developing, deepening, and enhancing public diplomacy between Poles, Polish-Jews (living within and outside of Poland), as well as the larger Jewish diaspora. 

Who I am:

Professor and Department Chair, Weber State University, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ogden, UT, USA.  

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

Teaching collaboration with the Department of Geology, the University of Warsaw.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

I want to share my professional experiences with the students from the University of Warsaw. I would like to contribute to establishing long-term relationships between my host institution and my home university. 

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to continue collaboration between Weber State University and the University of Warsaw. I would like to help students in both institutions to become more enthusiastic about Earth Sciences and to be successful in their future professional endeavors. 

Who I am:

At the root of all that I am—sociologist and sinologist, ethnographer, writer and teacher, citizen and mother—I am a learner. It is in new situations and on the front lines of change that I grow. Consequently, my formal education has always found sustenance and direction well outside the bounds of any institution. As a college student at Miami University of Ohio, I spent the summer of 1988 in Shanghai experiencing China’s opening up. Before pursuing my master’s degree in Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, I lived for more than a year in Taichung, Taiwan, appreciating the transition from rule by martial law to rule by competitive election. For my doctoral research as a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, San Diego, I witnessed the 1997 return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, then documented Hong Kong citizens’ political mobilization in the early 2000s. And in March 2020, barely staying ahead of our own coronavirus lockdown, I marveled at the determined pursuit of Hong Kong autonomy in the face of COVID-19 restrictions and subsequent imposition of a National Security Law. Being a Fulbright fellow affords me a new vantage on Polish soil.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

Those involved in Hong Kong’s project of democracy look to Ukraine for practical lessons. Whether individual professionals and citizens, audiences of the film “Winter on Fire,” or organizations in diaspora like Global Solidarity with Hong Kong, they associate their cause with a far-flung movement reaching Eastern Europe. During my ten-month Fulbright appointment at the University of Warsaw I will offer “Civil Society in post-Communist Ukraine and pre-Communist Hong Kong,” a course in two complementary versions: the first a graduate level seminar, the second tailored for undergraduates as a practicum. This newly crafted course channels the research interests, practical skills and pedagogical approach I have been developing across twenty years as a scholar.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

Now is a historic moment for Polish civil society because Poland is experiencing history on the front lines of war and of change. When Vladimir Putin deployed Russian forces for Ukraine’s invasion on February 24, 2022, Poland’s cities were pressed to absorb a massive influx of refugees; NGOs, museums, schools, hotels and offices and synagogues responded with daring pivots and adjustments to their services; across the country, private citizens, too, mobilized to house families fleeing war. At the University of Warsaw, students and professors are positioned to explore ways civil society finds openings to spread and fortify itself even as it struggles for the right to exist. 

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

I would like nothing more than to celebrate human flourishing.

Who I am:

I am a Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where I am the Director of the Center for Geographic Information Science and Technology. As a Geographer by training, my research focuses on the intersections of geographic information science and technology, disaster management, and forced displacement. I have conducted field research on forced displacement and refugee situations in Rwanda and Jordan through funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and United Nations (UN). I co-created with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) the Refugee Geographic Information Systems (RefuGIS) project which is the world’s first GIS innovation project for refugees. I am also active in international education activities by developing the next generation of scientists with research skills in geospatial technology and disaster management in international contexts. I am the author of the two editions of the book Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Disaster Management published by Routledge press and adopted worldwide.

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

The unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has created one of the largest humanitarian crises in modern times with over 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees entering Poland. My Fulbright will focus 75% on spatial data science research related to the forced migration of Ukrainian refugees in and out of Poland, and 25% on teaching a spatial data science class at Poznań University of Technology with the Ukrainian refugee situation in Poland as a central case study.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

In 1883, my great, great grandfather Władysław Tomaszewski left Prussian-occupied Wielkopolska, Poland as a refugee for the USA to seek a better life. Now, 140 years later, that better life has been realized through me: a tenured, college professor internationally-recognized for research and teaching on spatial data science, forced displacement and natural disasters. I see this Fulbright application in a sense as “returning home”:I am a descendant of 19th century refugees from Poland, coming back to 21st century Poland with skills and knowledge that can enhance Polish science and technology to support Ukrainian refugees. I am now on a career path where I am strategically looking for new challenges to address pressing problems facing global society. When the Ukrainian Russian conflict started in the spring of 2022, I was immediately motivated to find ways to offer my particular skill sets and abilities to help with the situation. I decided a Fulbright would be the best career path to pursue this as I was interested in Poland for a Fulbright long before the Ukrainian Russian conflict.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

I would like to pursue a new international research trajectory and tie directly into my future career plans of being an international scholar that advocates for the use of geospatial technology in forced displacement and disaster situations. One future plan I have is to use my Fulbright experience for a new perspective in the third edition of my book, or perhaps a new book focused on Spatial Data Science, Poland, and Ukraine.

Who I am:

I am a Los Angeles-based visual artist whose performance art practice responds to local surroundings with an attuned sensory awareness of ecological and historical context. Working across film, performance art, installation, drawing, and photography, I synthesize elements from Yiddish folktales, feminist performance art, clowning, and silent film to make powerful, and often political, statements about the world and the project of humanity’s survival. My work has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, BOMB, and Hyperallergic. My solo exhibition GOLEM: A Call to Action debuted at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, CA in 2021-2022. I have received support from the Coaxial Foundation for the Arts, Innovation Foundation, the California Center for Cultural Innovation, LAXART, Los Angeles Nomadic Division, the Banff Centre, Asylum Arts, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. 

My Fulbright grant focuses on:

Doikayt (Hereness) is a multimedia performance art project that stages live, character-driven performances at Jewish sites across Poland to explore themes of loss and healing through a diasporic lens. The project will reanimate Yiddish folktales and revitalize Ashkenazi performance traditions in the lands where Yiddish culture once flourished but was nearly extinguished by genocide.

I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant because:

For centuries, mythological figures like tzadiks, dybbuks, and golems populated the Yiddish folktales of Eastern Europe, animating the dreams and waking life of daily Jewish existence before the Holocaust. I decided to apply for a Fulbright grant to reinvigorate the dynamism of the Yiddish spiritual imagination and transform the cultural memories of genocide and displacement into reparative tools for healing in the present. By embodying these Yiddish folktales in Poland, their symbolic place of origin, my project will cultivate cross-cultural reconciliation in the face of historical violence, cultural erasure, and antisemitism.

After completing my Fulbright grant I would like to:

I would like to produce an experimental documentary film using the footage of the live performances and the research conducted during my Fulbright grant in Poland.