Yu-Wen Wu and Gabriel Sosa
Congratulations to Yu-Wen and Gabriel for being chosen as Now + There Accelerator Artists. This is big news!
The Now + There Public Art Accelerator creates an on-ramp for early- to mid-career Boston-area artists to successfully participate in the dynamic realm of public art. Accelerator artists build the skills and sensibilities necessary to conceptualize compelling, neighborhood-centric temporary public artworks and receive substantial funding to realize their projects. Together we develop a pathway for future success.
Yu-Wen Wu
Born in Taiwan, Yu-Wen Wu’s subjectivity as an immigrant is central to her artwork. The projects she pursues operate at the crossroads of art, science, politics and cultural issues. The form the artworks take includes site-specific video installations, large-scale drawings, community engaged practices and public art. Her work can be broadly categorized into three areas: the current global migration crises, environmental displacement and the Asian American immigration experience.
Wu’s recent works include With/Out Water (2018), High-Water Mark (2019), and Leavings/Belongings at the Pao Arts Center (2019). With/Out Water is an outdoor public art installation consisting of five tents each with distinct video works about global environmental displacement and within Boston’s Chinatown. High-Water Mark exhibited in Portsmouth NH discusses coastal sea level impacts. Leavings/Belongings (2017 to current) is a durational project that gives voice to the individual immigrant, refugee and the public about theirs and their family’s immigration journey.
The artwork brings small groups together to make symbolic bundles. Wu creates site specific transmedial installations from these gathered stories and bundles at the culmination of designated periods.For Now + There’s Public Art Accelerator looks forward to expanding current indoor installation ideas.
Gabriel Sosa
Gabriel Sosa is an artist, linguist and educator whose practice is rooted in the cross-section of law, translation, social justice, and the synthesis of fact and fiction. Through a multi-disciplinary practice that includes drawing, video, and installation, he explores how the use of language subtly and consistently shapes our everyday experiences.
Born and raised in Miami, he holds an M.F.A. from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Recent projects and exhibitions include ¿Para llevar o para tomar aquí? at the O, Miami Poetry Festival, Let me explain to you what this means at the Tufts University Art Galleries and It’s Morning Again in America at the Illuminus Festival.
In 2019, he was an artist-in-residence at Lugar a duda sin Cali, Colombia and is currently a Visiting Lecturer at MassArt. He is looking forward to learning about different approaches to public art and innovative ways to implement them in Boston.