The UTS Artist in Residence (UTS AIR) program is a residency opportunity for NSW-based artists or collectives to develop their practices in a rich tertiary research environment.
UTS AIR
The UTS Artist in Residence pairs one NSW visual artist with a UTS faculty partner to support the creation of a new work. The program is a valuable opportunity for knowledge-sharing and cross-disciplinary collaboration of mutual benefit to the artist and university research, and recognises the vital role of art in fostering economic, social and cultural value.
2023 Artist in Residence
Claudia Nicholson
As UTS Artist in Residence, Claudia Nicholson will work closely with UTS researchers from June 2023 - June 2024 to support the creation of new work.
As part of her residency, Claudia will work with Associate Professor Cherine Fahd to develop new material photographic outcomes, and with Dr Marivic Wyndham to examine the politics of memorialisation in the Latin America region. The residency culminates in the public presentation of new work at UTS Gallery in 2024.
UTS Artist in Residence Claudia Nicholson photo credit Felipe Olivares
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Claudia Nicholson is an interdisciplinary artist living and working on Bidjigal and Gadigal land. Her practice examines psychic and physical connections to place through multidisciplinary forms of art making including painting, installation, performance, and moving image.
In 2019 Claudia was commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and Vivid Sydney and presented new commissioned work, By Your Side, at the Art Gallery of NSW. In 2020 she was commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia to develop Art Trail, an art education resource for young people. Her exhibitions include Belonging, Art Gallery of NSW, 2019, Unfinished Business: Perspectives on art and feminism, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, The National 2017: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, Sydney, 2017. In 2017 she was awarded the NSW Emerging Visual Arts Fellowship. In 2023 Claudia will present a new digital commission for Shortwave with the Sydney Opera House. She has held residencies with TWT Artist Studios (2019-2021) Carriageworks (2017-2019) and Firstdraft Gallery (2012-2014). Her work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of NSW, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Artbank.
2022 Artist in Residence
HOSSEI
HOSSEI is an Australian artist with Persian, Turkish and Russian ancestry. His multidisciplinary practice incorporates performance, sound, video and painting, with a particular interest in the human voice. HOSSEI’s practice deals with his heritage, fantasies and feelings. He adopts themes of secrecy, the unconscious, theatricality and mysticism to create surreal scenarios through real and imagined characters— most recently his own mother has been the focal subject within his work.
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HOSSEI‘s practice explores concepts of healing through meditative ritual, performance and costume. Over the 12-month residency period, the artist will draw on the research strengths and facilities of UTS Design School to experiment with new materials, techniques and emerging technologies. HOSSEI will work closely with Associate Professor Timo Rissanen [Course Director, Fashion & Textiles] to develop and create a new series of “healing” costumes that utilise puppetry, electronics and advanced constructiontechniques. The residency culminates in the public presentation of new work at UTS in 2023.
HOSSEI holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) from Sydney College of the Arts. He was selected for Primavera 2014: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and has held residencies with Parramatta Artist Studios (2014-15), Artspace Sydney (2016) and PAS Open Digital Residency (2021-2022). He will present a major solo exhibition at West Space Melbourne in 2023.
Associate Professor TImo Rissanen is a fashion and textiles researcher with an interest in the interconnection between sustainability and social justice as they relate to the contemporary fashion industry. Timo produces cross-stitch, installation and performance pieces with a focus on labour, politics and love. His highly acclaimed work 15%, in partnership with artist Salla Salin, was staged in Helsinki and New York City and toured Germany, New Zealand and Japan as a video installation between 2012-2016.
He is a former Associate Professor of Fashion Design and Sustainability in the School of Fashion at the Parsons School of Design, The New School, and a founding member of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. He has published two books on fashion and sustainability: Zero Waste Fashion Design(Bloomsbury, 2016), co-written with Holly McQuillan, and Shaping Sustainable Fashion (Routledge, 2011) with Alison Gwilt.
The 2021 - 2022 UTS Artist in Residence program is generously supported by the UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT, and is administered by UTS Gallery & Art Collection.
2021 Artist in Residence
Amala Groom
Amala Groom is a Wiradyuri conceptual artist whose practice, as the performance of her cultural sovereignty, is informed and driven by First Nations epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies. Her work, a form of passionate activism, presents acute and incisive commentary on contemporary socio-political issues. Articulated across diverse media, Groom’s work often subverts and unsettles western iconographies to enunciate Aboriginal stories, experiences and histories, and to interrogate and undermine the legacy of colonialism. Informed by extensive archival, legislative and first-person research, Groom’s work is socially engaged, speaking truth to take a stand against hypocrisy, prejudice, violence and injustice.
Amala Groom, 2016. Credit: Penelope Benton.
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Amala Groom worked with Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt [Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research], Dr Andrew Burrell [Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building] and the UTS Law Faculty on a historical inquiry into the origins and implications of western legal, political and social authority as a comparative analysis with Aboriginal systems of lore, governance and collectivity. Groom’s residency will support a new body of work to be presented utilising virtual technologies.
Groom was the 2020 winner of the Wyndham Art Prize, the 2019 winner of the Incinerator Gallery Award, and her practice has been recognised in more than 40 national prizes. Her work is held in private national and international collections and institutional collections including Artbank, Deutsche Bank Collection, Blacktown City Art Collection and Casula Powerhouse Art Centre. She has completed residencies at Artshouse VIC; Bundanon Trust NSW; Campbelltown Arts Centre NSW; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, NSW; Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery NSW; Mosman Art Gallery NSW; Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) NSW; Salamanca Arts Centre TAS; Underbelly Arts Festival NSW and Vitalstatistix SA. Groom’s work has been included in more than 50 national and international exhibitions, including The National 2019: New Australian Art, Carriageworks, curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, and a five year survey of her practice, RE:Union, curated by Sarah Gurich at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2020.
2021 Artist in Residence
Sidney McMahon
Sidney McMahon is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculptural installation, video and performance, with an interest in architecture, the body, memory and feeling. McMahon’s work brings together distinct cultural contexts, as well as social and economic systems to explore a personal queer narrative. They completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Southern Queensland in 2009, a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) at Sydney College of the Arts (USYD) in 2010, a Master of Art Curatorship at USYD in 2011 and a Master of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts at USYD in 2015.
Sidney McMahon in their studio at Parramatta Artist Studios, 2018. Courtesy Parramatta Artists Studio. Credit: Jacquie Manning.
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Sidney McMahon worked with Dr YK Wang [Faculty of Engineering and IT] to explore new possibilities of audience interactivity through the use of Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology. Currently used most widely in medical fields, BCI poses future applications that will extend human experience through neuroprosthetics. McMahon’s residency will support the collaborative development of a new interactive sculptural installation.
McMahon was an artist in residence at Parramatta Artists’ Studios from 2016 – 2018, and was awarded the 2017 Parramatta City Council Visual Arts Fellowship. In 2017 they completed a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and Studio Voltaire, London. In 2018 they completed residencies at Wysing Arts Centre, UK, and a travelling residency between Kyoto and Tokyo organised by Move Arts Japan in collaboration with Asialink Arts. They have shown nationally and internationally in solo, group and curatorial projects in various galleries including, The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (VIC), MOP Projects (NSW), Clearview Ltd (LDN), Open Source Gallery (NY), Auto Italia (LDN), Metro Arts (QLD), and Verge Gallery (NSW).
The 2020 - 2021 UTS Artist in Residence program is generously supported by the Anita and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis Foundation and the UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT, and is administered by UTS Gallery & Art Collection.
