Upcoming Artists

June 2023

September 2023

Sample Work

2019
লয় [Loy]
2022
Fracture Analysis 2
2017
Salvage
2019
Choreographic Performances in Everyday Life
2021
6.58: Manifesto
2018
At the Dinner Table
Materials have always been the starting point for Waqif’s works; whether objects with which he has long, complicated histories, detritus he has collected from various sources, or plant forms he has nurtured into being.
Before delving into the meanings and messages of his sculptures, the viewer is confronted with an aggressive material presence in his work, usually fusing incongruous elements together and harnessing an improbable sense of balance.
Apart from the sheer physical voluptuousness of Waqif’s sculptures, their combinations of natural and industrial materials force us to confront many of humanity’s most urgent dilemmas, positing a moment in history (now?) when civilization may be losing control of itself.
Hybrid Latinx artist and director of the multidisciplinary company AP&A (Andréa Peña & Artists), Andrea Peña's practice as a designer and choreographer merges the body and materiality in performative, digital and sculptural works to create living arts universes.
Andrea is recognized internationally for her creations of critical, alternative and spatial universes that break our notions and conceptions of a sensitive humanity, and engage in rich encounters between conceptual research and a highly physical and material approach.
Working across mediums, her works intersect questions around the role of the sensible body in dialogue with external design environments and situations; utilizing choreographic knowledge beyond performative contexts. 
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Asim Waqif
Andrea Peña

Residency Program

The Mattress Factory’s artistic program is focused on the commission, presentation and collection of new site-specific installations that are developed in residency. Each installation is conceived for and executed in the space in which the public sees it. The work is integrated into the site and depends on its relationship to the setting for its final effect.

Since 1977, the Mattress Factory has provided space and resources for more than 750 artists to make site-specific works. Each year, eight to twelve new works open to the public and continue on public view for four to six months. At the end of the exhibition period, works are removed, and the galleries are returned to their original condition.

Residencies range from one week to two months, with an average of three to four weeks. The artists determine the length of time they wish to work, and the schedule is designed to provide maximum on-site staff support for each artist. Professional carpenters, plasterers and metal-workers participate in the installation process as needed, and the curatorial staff locates materials -- bags of human hair, miles of barbed wire, tons of paraffin wax, insect larvae -- whatever the artist needs. The staff locates equipment to fill artists’ requests, such as cooling a space to below freezing temperatures, or lining a room with LED screens.

There are currently no open calls.