2025 FELLOWS – AnkhLave Arts

Zaq Landsberg

“Elektro Moai”“

The sculpture is a mix of Elektro, the robot that was presented at the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens, and was one of the first humanoid looking robots ever made (which smoked a cigarette, answered questions, counted to 5 on its hand) and Easter Island Moai. I was thinking about the initial discovery of the Moai, the mystery surrounding monuments on an inhabited island, idols to long forgotten deities. There are “robots” in our not-so-long but forgotten past (1939) and how the technological, artificial intelligence hype world we inhabit is not actually all that new.

Bio:

Zaq Landsberg is a NYC-based artist. He specializes in large scale, site-specific sculptures, and public art. Much of his work involves things that look like other things. He has exhibited solo shows with the NYC Parks Department, with chashama (NYC), at CUAC (Salt Lake City, Utah), La Ene, (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and Pehr Space (LA). His work has shown in group exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, NY), Franconia Sculpture Park, (Shafer, MN), CCK, (Buenos Aires, Argentina), MALBA, (Buenos Aires), Bronx Community College (NY), Figment Festival (Governors Island, NY), and others. He was awarded a NYC Parks Clare Weiss Emerging Artist Award in 2020, a UMEZ Arts Engagement Grant and LMCC Creative Engagement Grant (2020), NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Sculpture in 2017, the Art in the Parks: UNIQLO Park Expressions Grant and a More Art Engaging Artist Fellowship in 2018. He was an artist-in-residence with the LMCC Workspace Program 2019-2020, and Sculpture Space (Utica, NY) in 2012. His antics have been covered in more than 40 countries in more than 27 languages, including Artnet news, Time Out NY, Vice, NY Daily News, The Believer, PEOPLE Magazine, Clarín (Argentina), ARTE (France), Blouin Art Info, Gothamist, KSL Salt Lake City, WGN Radio, NY Magazine, Fox News, The Daily Mail, among others. He was born in Los Angeles, and holds a BFA from NYU. He is of Chinese and Jewish descent.

Tijay Mohammed

“An Nisa: The Women“

“An-Nisa: The Women”, celebrates the vital and significant role of women, referencing a verse in the Quran that highlights the elevated ranks of women and promoting peaceful coexistence with one’s neighbors, humanity and the environment. The site-specific installation predominantly consists of African wax, Kente, Batik and Tie and dye fabrics scraps, collected from seamstresses across Africa, Caribbean, and United States, symbolically, it represents groups portrait of diverse communities.The piece was created collaboratively with visiting families at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan NY. Through an interactive process that demonstrates a commitment to community, self-love and appreciation, with cultural and historical references inspired by the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol ‘Sankofa,’ which means ‘learning from the past to ensure a prosperous future.

This collaboration creates a sanctuary space that celebrates unity in diversity, while amplifying and community- love atmosphere.

Bio:

Ghanaian-born artist Tijay Mohammed has showcased his work on both national andinternational stages, gracing prestigious venues like the Katonah Museum of Art NY,Hudson River Museum NY, Materials for the Arts NY, Art League Houston TX, GreenDrake Art Gallery PA, Gallery 1202 CA, Ravel d’ Art in Côte d’Ivoire, and The NationalMuseum of Ghana. Tijay’s impact extends beyond exhibition spaces; he has spearheadedworkshops and community-oriented projects for esteemed organizations, includingthe Studio Museum Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art &Storytelling, Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Wallach Art Gallery, Lehman College,University of Ghana, and Pinto Community Centre in Trinidad and Tobago. His contributions have not gone unnoticed, garnering him various accolades and res-idencies from renowned institutions such as The Laundromat Project, Wave Hill, ArtBridge, Materials for the Arts, Harmattan Workshop in Nigeria, Global Crit Clinic, andAsiko Artist Residency in Ghana. Grants from institutions like Arts Fund, the BronxCouncil on the Arts’ Artist for Community and New Work grant, and the Spanish Em-bassy Ghana Painters Award further attest to his artistic prowess. The artist currently resides in Bronx, NY and maintains a studio in Ghana that servesas a sanctuary for visiting artists to interact with residents, promoting multicultural dialoguethrough story circles and art workshops.

Yupin Pramotepipop

“Together We Are Strong”

Tree Branches, Twine, Bamboo, Metal Rebar. About this work, Yupin says “I learned this Thai word in school as a child. Breaking one branch is easy but hard to break a bundle of branches at the same time. The energy of togetherness is powerful. I believe it suits the meaning of any society at anytime… especially NOW”.

Bio:

Yupin Pramotepipop is a Thai New York based artist from a smalltown in the south of Thailand. She is of Chinese descent andgrew up surrounded by a mixture of Chinese and Thai culture.While she always enjoyed drawing in art classes as a child. Shecombines nature, repurposed, representational and symbolicapproaches with gestural feeling of the curve to explore visualimages in drawing, sculpture and environmental art in sites whereit is possible. Before earning a MFA from the New York Academy of Art,majoring in Sculpture , she studied and received Certificates ofSculpture and Painting at the Art Students League of New York.Yupin received Achievement Award from “Togetherness andOneness” group exhibition at Williamsburg Art & Historical Center,Brooklyn; McDowell Travel Grant (4 months) from the ArtStudents League of New York. Yupin’s sculptures were included in Sculpture Walk outdoorexhibitions and Partner Networks in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsinand South Dakota. She also exhibited at the National Museum ofSports (the Art Students League), the National Museum forWomen in the Arts (Fund Raising with CLAW), the HunterdonMuseum of Art, The Belskie museum of Art and Science(New York Society of Women Artists), Steinberg Museum of Art( NYSWA), Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, NationalSculpture Society and more. Her works are in permanentcollections at Washington Pavilion Art and Science Ccnter, YukoNii foundation, New York Public Library, and numerous privatecollections.

Yitian Yan

“Nationality / Grandfather on the Land of USA”

This project hangs a flag made out of textiles printed with grandfather’s portraits and the roots of a banyan tree. The Banyan tree pictures were taken from a park next to my childhood home that featured a political leader’s statue on its mountain top. Grandfather loved posing in this park to have his photos taken when he was alive. He passed away two months ago in China; I could not attend his funeral due to international travel limits. He has never been to United States, though I think he would be proud knowing a flag made of his portraits stands on the land of USA. So I made this flag pole work, and I plan to memorialize him in my own way through a performance. The flag pole will be 12ft, and the flag will be 2x3in.

Bio:

Yitian Yan is an interdisciplinary artist creating research-based, community-centered public art. She has exhibited and performed at Power Station of Art, Shanghai, Photo LA, the Art Institute of Chicago, MH Project, New York, and has extended her research to sites including Shenzhen, China, Dali, China, and Hiketa, Japan. She was granted the Lower Manhattan Culture Council Arts Center residency in 2024, and is currently completing the Performance Project Fellowship, University Settlement. Her work is in collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yan received an MFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018, currently lives and works in New York.

Kevin Gordon

“ARtist Unbound”

This is an immersive public AR art gallery created for the web! This project is a posthumous artistic collaboration between a father and son that blends contemporary and digital immersive art. The father, Hugh Gordon, was a naturally gifted artist born in Kingston, Jamaica. His collection of work includes a variety of drawings and paintings highlighting slices of Caribbean Life and Black Culture. Engraved in wood is a sketch his father drew of himself in years past, embedded with a QR code. Upon scanning the QR code, users are transported to an immersive art gallery that showcases more of his father’s artwork, utilizing WebAR technology.

Bio:

Kevin Gordon, a game designer and graduate student from Mount Vernon, NY, is a Hard of Hearing individual who specializes in Environment Art, Technical Art, and designing immersive experiences for VR and AR. Over the past few years, he has contributed to various VR projects as the Environment and Technical Artist throughout their production. Each project offered him the opportunity to push the boundaries of his craft and reach new creative heights. As he continues to develop and engage with VR games and experiences, Kevin has observed a significant issue across the medium—one he aims to address through this project.

Hong Wu

“Pearls”

A sculpture built from deconstructed bentwood chair components.

Hong “borrows” the manufacturing process of bentwood chairs as metaphor of the historic objectification of women’s rights. She hopes to advocate for collective response for women’s rights through art.

Bio:

Hong serves as the co-chair of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture’s Geospatial and Digital Analytics Track, former co-chair of Penn State’s University Water Council, director of the Penn State Stormwater Living Lab, and a core member of Stuckeman’s Ecology + Design Center. Additionally, Hong is an Editorial Advisory Board Member of the Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes journal. Academically trained in architecture and landscape architecture, Hong’s research passion lies in an important and timely set of topics across different spatial scales. As of 2023, she had led or co-led more than 25 research projects, securing over $7 million in grant funding and publishing 40 peer-reviewed articles. Her interdisciplinary research efforts were honored with an Excellence in Research and/or Creative Works award by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in 2023. Hong is passionate about exploring innovative design approaches to integrating sustainability into urban landscapes. Her current focus is on investigating the environmental, social, and economic aspects of green stormwater infrastructure across different social and environmental contexts.

Zaq Landsberg

Tijay Mohammed

Yupin Pramotepipop

Yitian Yan

Kevin Gordon

Hong Wu

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