artist-in-residence program
The Powerhouse Arts Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program is a paid, six-month residency for early-career New York City–based artists to develop new ambitious, fabrication-driven work.
Applications for the 2026–2027 cycle are now open and close June 28, 2026.
about AiR
The Powerhouse Arts Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program supports three early-career, New York City–based artists each year in the development and fabrication of ambitious new work over six months. Designed for artists at a pivotal stage in their practice, AiR provides generous financial support, fabrication and materials funding, dedicated studio space, curatorial mentorship, and access to Powerhouse Arts’ fabrication facilities and expert technicians.
Created in response to Powerhouse Arts’ mission to expand access to art fabrication, AiR enables residents to work directly with fabrication shops across print, ceramics, textiles, public art, and digital print. Through this collaboration, artists gain technical knowledge, production experience, and hands-on support while developing projects from early experimentation through public presentation. Each residency cycle culminates in an exhibition of newly commissioned work.
AiR prioritizes artists from historically underrepresented backgrounds and those with limited access to institutional resources or fabrication infrastructure.
The 2026–2027 AiR program runs from August 24, 2026 through March 5, 2027. Applications are open from June 1 through June 28, 2026.
Learn more about the AiR program structure and application process here.
past residents
October 2025 - April 2026
Ngozi Olojede (they/them) is an American-born, South African-ish, Nigerian spatial designer and installation artist based in Brooklyn. Their work hinges on the psychology and politics surrounding space-making, covering the breadth of the design process from concept development to implementation. For the last six years, they have worked with artists, communities, design firms, creative agencies, and non-profits to create immersive spatial experiences. Their practice spans architecture, landscape design, exhibition design, production & set design, and experience design—with projects across New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, London, Vienna, Ljubljana, Lagos, and Lungi-town in Sierra Leone. Self-taught in their field, ngozi is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where they double-majored in International Relations & African Studies. With this lens, they conceive of design as a mechanism for development. They have also had locs since they were six.
October 2025 - April 2026
Nazanin Noroozi (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist working with moving images, printmaking, and alternative photography to explore collective history, longing, and displacement. Her work has been exhibited at The Print Center (PA), SPACES (Cleveland, OH), Athopos (Athens, Greece), Golestani Gallery (Düsseldorf, Germany), the Immigrant Artist Biennial (NY), Baxter St at CCNY (NY), the Noyes Museum of Art (NJ), New York Live Arts, and the School of Visual Arts, among others. She has received fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts (Film & Video), the Marabeth Cohen-Tyler Print/Paper Fellowship at Dieu Donné, Artistic Freedom Initiative, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, and MASS MoCA. Her work has been featured in the British Journal of Photography, Die Zeit Magazine, BBC News Persian, Elephant Magazine, and the Financial Times. Noroozi’s works are held in public collections including the New York Public Library, Harvard Art Museums, Arizona State University, and the University of Michigan. She is Editor-at-Large of Kaarnamaa: A Journal of Art History and Criticism and lives and works in New York City.
October 2025 - April 2026
Grace Lynne Haynes (she/her) is a visual artist and educator originally hailing from Los Angeles, and currently living and working in Brooklyn. Haynes, known for her bold palettes and mystic forms, imagines new worlds and futuristic possibilities from the lens of a Black woman. Haynes explores how the process of world building can become a zone of creative and cultural liberation by exploring new possibilities of being. She fluidly shifts between fantasy and reality, and utilizes the imaginative strategies of science fiction and Afrofuturism to envision alternative futures for people of African descent. Grace has exhibited internationally, notably at the Harvey B. Gantt Center, 2020 Biennale De Dakar, and the Ontario Museum of History and Art in California. Her accolades include being part of the inaugural cohort of the Black Rock Senegal Residency, featured in the PBS series State of the Arts in 2021, and her work has graced the cover of the New Yorker Magazine twice.
April - July 2023
van Forde (he/him) is a contemporary artist based in New York City, working across photography, printmaking, collage, sound performance, and installation. The artist performs for the camera often outdoors or in the studio, framing himself as protagonist, antagonist, and chimerical human/animal hybrids navigating the antique structures of epic poetry to redefine contemporary notions of migration(s), memory, homeland(s) and idenity(ies). Ivan has held performances at The Kitchen, The Jewish Museum, and The Whitney Museum. Select Institutional Group Exhibitions include the Smithsonian National African American Museum Of History And Culture, Columbia University’s Wallach Gallery, Syracuse University Palitz gallery, MICA, MCA Chicago, The Studio Museum, and Ingrid Deusse Gallery in Antwerp. Forde is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Powerhouse Arts Inaugural AIR fellowship (2023), Whitney Independent Study Program (2022), the 2020 Emerging Artist Award by Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, the Civitella Ranieri visual arts fellowship (2019) and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans (2017). Residencies include the Lower East Side Printshop, YADDO, Pioneer Works, Vermont studio center, and ACRE Projects Chicago. Ivan teaches at Columbia University and SUNY Purchase College. Forde’s work is represented in numerous collections including Syracuse University Art Museum, The Studio Museum, The Escalate collection at Chapman University, and the 7G Foundation.
June - August 2023
Narumi Nekpenekpen (she/her) is a Japanese American artist raised between Japan and Los Angeles, California, where she currently lives and works. Working primarily in glazed porcelain and clay, Nekpenekpen creates emotionally charged sculptural forms that merge anthropomorphic figures, abstraction, and diaristic mark-making. Her works often feature cartoon-like faces, handwritten text, chains, stars, and bodily fragments, using color and gesture as a personal symbolic language through which themes of intimacy, vulnerability, heartbreak, memory, and self-reflection emerge. Drawing from intuition and emotional states rather than strict formalism, her practice navigates the space between tenderness and unease, transforming clay into expressive, psychologically resonant forms. Nekpenekpen received her BFA from California State University, Long Beach, where she studied under artists including Jennie Jieun Lee, Tony Marsh, Christopher Miles, and Ruby Neri. She has presented solo exhibitions at Harkawik, New York; Soft Opening, London; and Galerie Lefebvre & Fils, Paris, among others. Her work has also been included in exhibitions and projects internationally, earning attention for its distinctive fusion of emotional immediacy, pop-cultural aesthetics, and experimental ceramic practice
AiR exhibitions & events
What is Lost, What is Held: 2025–2026 Artist-in-Residence exhibition
March 5 — April 1, 2026
Marking the inaugural year of the PHA Artist-in-Residence program, each artist had the opportunity to collaborate with the organization’s fabrication shops to explore themes of water, memory, loss, and what endures.
Watch
What is Lost, What is Held: Panel Conversation
March 5, 2026
New York City–based curator Rachel Vera Steinberg was joined by our three inaugural residents to reflect on their experiences in the residency program. The artists shared insights about how the work was made and about their collaborations with our fabrication shops and teams.