Tett Artist Residency

2024 TETT ARTIST RESIDENCY Recipients

We are thrilled to announce the selected artists for the inaugural TETT ARTIST RESIDENCY in 2024: Q1: Baiqing (Audrey) Chen, Q2: Meenakashi Ghadial, Q3: Sheldon Traviss, and Q4: Sophia Fabiilli

Designed to nurture emerging artists in Katarokwi/Kingston, this three-month residency provides each recipient with exclusive studio access at a time, fostering an environment conducive to creative incubation within our vibrant community arts centre.

These artists embody diverse disciplines, bringing their unique perspectives to our thriving arts community. We can’t wait to see the creativity they will unfold in 2024! 

The Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning is grateful for the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation for making the Tett Artist Residency possible.

Biographies 

Baiqing (Audrey) Chen is a rising talent in digital media, exhibition curation, video editing, and production. Currently a fourth-year Media and Performance Production student at Queen's University, she excels in multimedia storytelling, blending technology and artistic expression. Audrey's expertise spans various multimedia tools, enabling her to create immersive, visually stunning experiences. Her proficiency with advanced digital technology underscores her dedication to innovative artistry. In exhibition curation, Audrey's attention to detail and ability to conceptualize and execute exhibitions have proven invaluable, enhancing visitor experiences significantly. Her portfolio showcases her role in transforming artistic concepts into reality, marking her as a key player in exhibition teams. Audrey's artistic journey reflects her commitment to innovation and her pursuit of exploring new frontiers in digital media, curation, editing, and production.

Find her @audreychenyou on Instagram

Meenakashi Ghadial (b. 2001) is a visual artist from Brampton, Ontario currently based in Katarokwi/Kingston. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) with a Minor in Art History and is completing her Bachelor of Education at Queen’s University. Her practice focuses on representational oil paintings on metal that explore themes of marriage, love, intimacy, and queerness through the use of current documentation as well as archival family material. In her work, she presents the car as a safe liminal space for queer People of Colour. She is intrigued by the dichotomy of how cars can also function as a vessel for damaging heteronormative practices in Sikh wedding traditions. By comparing these two different contexts that cars exist in, She is able to create personal autobiographical work that explores the duality of viewing cars beyond simply a vessel for transportation, while exploring the particularities of intergeneral experiences.

Meenakashi Ghadial has exhibited locally at the Window Art Gallery, Union Gallery and Art Noise Art Gallery. She has also exhibited in Toronto at the Neilson Park Creative Centre and Gallery 1313. She was recently an artist-in-residence at the Modern Fuel Artist Run Centre and is a member of the Ontario Kingston Women Artists Association. She received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award in 2022 in Drawing and Painting. In February 2024, Meenakashi will be Co-Curating an Exhibition at the Window Art Gallery in Kingston that focuses on BIPOC Experiences of family. During her time as an artist-in-residence at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning in April 2024, she plans to further explore themes of memory, history and queerness through interdisciplinary approaches. 

Find her @meenakart on Instagram and meenakart.com

Sheldon Traviss is an emerging artist living in Kingston, Ontario. Sheldon grew up in Bancroft, Ontario before moving to this city some 35 years ago. Being of Mohawk descent he has spent the majority of his life attempting, as best as he can, to live a traditional life. That pursuit has guided him over the years; training as a firekeeper in his youth, a lifelong passion for Indigenous culinary tradition, community involvement and volunteerism, food sovereignty, and cultural revitalization. His artistic practice includes both graphite and digital drawing, and ceramic and wood sculpture. Those tenets have driven many of Sheldon’s activities and continue to drive him today, currently with the pursuit of cultural revitalization through the creation and use of traditional Haudenosaunee cooking vessels and pottery using locally sourced, self-processed materials.

Sheldon continues serving as a Member of the board for All Our Relations Land Trust and a founding member of Catarqoui Longhouse Education and Archival Research, and still joyfully participates in ethical research steering committees at Queen's University while continuing duties as a traditional firekeeper for his local urban Indigenous Community. Sheldon’s dedication to his people has now led him to this new road in life and he looks forward to what it may bring.

Sophia Fabiilli is a playwright, screenwriter, and educator. Her works include: The Philanderess (The Second City Award for Best New Comedy), How to Stand Up (Ellen Ross Stuart Opening Doors Award), Liars at a Funeral (Blyth Festival 2023, Magnus Theatre 2024, Thousand Islands Playhouse 2024), and her newest project, Why It’s Impossible to Raise a Girl, will premiere in Kingston in September 2024. Previously, she served as the Associate Artistic Director of the Thousand Islands Playhouse, and is a graduate of the Bell Media Prime Time TV Writing Program at the Canadian Film Centre in association with ABC Signature Studios.