In Residence, a 2025 Fellowships Journal
This October, our five ArtsLink International Fellows have embarked on their in-person residencies with host organizations across the US. Hailing from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, these artists will spend the next five weeks immersed in exchanges, collaborations, and lasting connections.
“In Residence” is a live journal documenting the fellows’ experiences firsthand. Updated regularly with their photos and words, it serves as a collective chronicle of five weeks spent in unfamiliar territory—discovering new cultural landscapes while weaving bonds over common threads
QUICK LINKS
Week 1 – Arrivals
Week 2
Week 3
Arrivals - October 6th
Olha Filonchuk has arrived in Kansas, a long way from home in Ukraine, to start her residency at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at University of Kansas – hosted by Vitaly Chernetsky.
~
Another fellow from Ukraine, artist Diana Berg, is settling into sunny Santa Ana, California – where her residency at Grand Central Art Center with host John D. Spiak is just beginning.
Meanwhile in Ohio, Kazakh artist and DJ Sabina Fattakh has made their way to Cleveland, where they received a warm welcome from M. Carmen Lane at ATNSC: Center for Healing and Creative Leadership, the host venue for their residency.
Sabina and their host Carmen hit the ground running on their first day, visiting galleries, community spaces around Cleveland, and the Cleveland Institute of Art while making valuable connections.
Video by Sabina Fattakh
Meanwhile on the East Coast, Diana Rakhmanova, a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and journalist, from Tajikistan, is settling in to dynamic and cross-cultural New York City as she embarks on her residency with Nova Benway at Triangle. Founded in 1982 by a collective of artists seeking to foster international creative exchange, Triangle has established itself as a prestigious visual arts residency that supports artists from around the globe.
Week 2: Connections, Public Events, and more
In New York, Diana Rahmanova, is experiencing a rich series of meetings with artists, researchers, and curators, organised by her host organisation, Triangle.
“Each encounter is a seperate world of experience, experimentation, and inspiration“
shares Diana.
First meeting for Diana was with Finnish artist Harriina Räinä.
Diana shares: “Her artistic practice is rooted in close relationships with the land and multispecies life. Harriina explores embodiment, materiality, and the interactions between humans and animals.
Her projects address the cultural and geological meanings of iron (Planetary Beings), the impact of commercial oyster farming (Volatile Shells & Clutch), the role of animal-based materials in the history of printmaking (The Other as Matter), and her personal experience within the moose hunting tradition (Visage & Hunted).
Each work becomes a dialogue with nature and the memory of matter.”
Diana then gets to meet Frank Wang Yefeng, and shares: “He/they is an interdisciplinary artist working with 3D animation, video, and installation.
His poetic digital worlds explore migration, identity, and the feeling of being “in-between” — between cultures, spaces, and times.
Born in Shanghai and holding an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he is now based between Rhode Island and New York.
His upcoming project Desert Garden will be featured at Art Basel Hong Kong 2025.“
*****
A week into their residencies, several Fellows are already participating in local events, thanks to connections made with their hosts since arriving.
Maka took part in the Art Spark TX Radio Hour, hosted on KOOP 91.7FM, Austin’s community radio station. The Radio Hour featuring Maka aired on Monday, October 13th with a replay now available, listen it here.
Up north in Ohio, Sabina Fattakh was scheduled to speak at Cleveland Institute of Art‘s LOF (Lunch on Fridays) on Friday, October 17th. The public got the opportunity to spend their lunch hour with Sabina as she shared insights into Kazakhstan’s local art scene from the perspective of both a practitioner and co-founder of KEREGE Central Asia, the Kazakh art platform actively building this community in Almaty.
Sabina felt genuinely moved by how committed and engaged the audience was, asking thoughtful questions that created meaningful moments of connection.
The following day, Sabina provided introductory remarks for a special screening of Fall of Otrar (1991), a Soviet-era Kazakhstani historical epic organized by the Cleveland Cinematheque.
Diana Rahmanova has continued attending enriching artist meetings organized by her host Triangle Arts in New York.
This third encounter was with S. Proski, a blind/disabled artist, writer, and educator.
“Their practice engages with personal experiences of blindness through painting, textiles, sculpture, and text, with the aim of challenging the bias towards vision in art. Their work foregrounds the complexities of blind culture, its relationship to vision and language, and the embedded hierarchical structures that prioritize the ocularcentric. Proski negotiates the state of being blind, situated within the cross-contamination of material, exploring sensorially new modes of perception beyond the visual.” shares Diana.
In Santa Ana, Diana Berg attended a dinner hosted by her residency host, John Spiak, where she met a vibrant group of local artists and forged connections that promise exciting collaborations in the coming weeks. Already scheduled for Diana is the screening of MEMORIUPOL, a selection of short films dedicated to raising awareness about the city of Mariupol, Ukraine – Diana will present and facilitate the subsequent discussion.
For Diana, the story of Mariupol is deeply personal. Originally from Donetsk, she moved to Mariupol and made a new home there after Donetsk was occupied by pro-russian forces in 2014. In the early days of the full-scale war in 2022, Russian troops surrounded Mariupol, besieging it for three months. Barely escaping the occupation, Diana was forced to relocate to Kyiv. Now largely destroyed, with many residential buildings no longer habitable, Mariupol remains under Russian occupation.
Thursday, October 23 | 6PM | Grand Central Art Center
In the Midwest, Olha has deepened her understanding of Kansas, Indigenous traditions, and the local Ukrainian community through gallery and museum visits organized by her host, Vitaly Chernetsky. Her research into the sunflower’s shared symbolism for both Kansas and Ukraine has led to a fruitful collaboration with the rare books and archives department at the University of Kansas.
Week 3: Sunflowers, events and more connections
In parallel with the preparation of the screening and discussion around Memoriupol, Diana Berg was also actively involved on the conception and planning of a pop-up exhibition, The Alchemy of Memories and Traumas.
Prepared in collaboration with Antonio Palomo AG, an El Salvador born Santa Ana local artist, the exhibition will be a ritualistic journey through loss, memory, and healing. This show is the result of a rich residency at Grand Central Art Center.
The duo of artists shares more details about their project:
“The show explores esoteric practices and alchemy as methods for processing trauma. Through both personal works and collaborations (…) the exhibition exposes the shocking similarities in stories of pain and the absurd contrasts between war and peace, creating a space for communal healing.
The show is an alchemical laboratory: here, sand from a site of tragedy meets the waters of ocean, Orthodox domes are transformed into memorial candles, and shattered memories are given new form. This is an honest and raw look at trauma from different angles, exploring the surreal contrasts of our time and the magic essential for survival.”
More info about the project
Opening Reception Saturday, November 1, 2025 | 7 – 10pm
Maka had a packed week in Austin with her residency host, Art Spark Texas, filled with meetings and studio visits. One of the highlights of the week was the Elements Dance monthly class, for which the guest dance teacher was none other than Maka.
Elements Dance class is an inclusive and accessible dance workshop, free and open to all adults. Bringing disabled and non-disabled dancers together, these classes are prodigious events for the local community. This was a perfect fit for Maka, who uses the performing arts to foster connection and understanding among marginalized and underrepresented communities.
“We had a wonderful movement workshop with the Art Spark community members on Saturday! During the workshop, we explored and developed our individual, unique movement vocabularies, which eventually transformed into a spontaneous shared performance.” shared Maka.
Ohla‘s residency has allowed her to dig deep into the history of Kansas, pre- and post-colonial, and specifically research the connection between her homeland, Ukraine, and the Midwestern state. The following Fellowship Notes give a good idea of how galvanizing the last weeks have been. Find Ohla’s notes with each photo.
Handwoven (~100 years old) cloth from Ukraine dyed with sunflower seeds — this particular species was used by Indigenous peoples for centuries to dye fabric.
The local native sunflowers. These are among the plants that once came from North America to Europe. They used to grow like this along the roadsides and became a state symbol almost as soon as Kansas was founded.
The sunflowers we know in Ukraine— and some pears from my yard. People here usually don’t grow fruit trees around their houses, so these pears are eaten only by me and the squirrels.
The Lawrence Historical Museum — a book from the early 20th century.
The Legend of the Sunflower, published in 1913. Spenser Research Library
The sunflower was also a symbol of the suffragist movement in Kansas. Original badge from the Spencer Research Library (they collect artifacts as well)
A botany lecture for students who study textile and natural dyeing. You might not have known (I didn’t either) — the center of the sunflower consists of dozens of tiny flowers that later turn into seeds, while the petals we call “the flower” serve only an attractive, signaling function.
Marigolds I collected myself are now dyeing threads that I plan to use in the visual of the project.
The result: ➡️ indigo, marigold, Osage orange tree
Greetings from Kansas! 🌻
Ohla will also give an artist talk on Tuesday, October 28, hosted by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Kansas. The talk, “Tracing Connections: We Once Were A Garden,” offers another valuable opportunity for our Fellow to engage with the local community.
In New York, Diana Rahmanova has had no respite from her previously busy schedule, lining up meetings with local artists and visits to key places throughout the city and beyond thanks to the team at Triangle: Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Beacon, and even Philadelphia.
> > Residencies in progress, stay tuned…
Article
Fellowships
Field Notes