Meet the 2025 Étant donnés Grantees

Shu Lea Cheang has conceived an ambitious commission for the context of Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a space dedicated to LGBTQIA+ art and artists. Cheang’s recent US tour associated with her film, Fresh Kill (1994), undertaken while mourning Aérea’s untimely death (and trans death at large) led her to an unexpected locus of the Queer community in the Tucson desert, with whom she will create this project. In its physical installation, LOVER, LOVE will radically transform the museum with a series of projections and screens that are physically manipulable by the audience, returning agency to them. The commission will support the research, production, and post-production of the film, which will ultimately result in a year-long exhibition at the museum––the longest run of a solo exhibition to date.    

Shu Lea Cheang 

Shu Lea Cheang is a pioneering artist and filmmaker known for blending sci-fi, Queer cinema, and networked art. Her transgressive, participatory works explore gender, technology, and futurism. A net art trailblazer, she represented Taiwan at the 2019 Venice Biennale and was awarded the 2024 LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Award. 

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Photo: 3x3x6, installation view at Venice Biennial, Shu Lea Cheang 2019 © Guan-ming Lin 

Christelle Oyiri’s Hauntology of an OG delves into the concept of hauntology while paying tribute to the underground rap scene of 1990s Memphis. In essence, hauntology in music centers on creating a sense of the past as a ghostly, lingering presence—whether through samples, lo-fi aesthetics, or nostalgic themes—and using this to evoke emotional responses tied to memory, loss, and a sense of temporal dislocation. With the presentation of her new work, the artist asks: How does the past continue to shape our experience of the present, and what ghosts do we live with that still influence our cultural landscape?   

Christelle Oyiri 

Paris-based artist and DJ (CRYSTALLMESS), Christelle Oyiri blends film, music, performance, and sculpture to explore alienation and alternative temporalities. Her research is focused on the tonalities, textures, and visual vernacular of the music, art, popular culture, and youth cultures within and outside the African diaspora. Her work has been exhibited at Centre Pompidou and Lafayette Anticipations in Paris, Tramway in Glasgow, Los Angeles Nomadic Division, and MMK Frankfurt am Main, among others.

Christelle Oyiri is a former Villa Albertine resident. See more here. 

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Photo: Installation view of AN EYE FOR AN “I” (2024) at ZOLLAMT MMK Frankfurt am Main, courtesy the artist © Frank Sperling 

This exhibition is the first to examine the visual, political, and spiritual histories of dancehall and reggaetón through the lens of contemporary art. It features work across various mediums by over 40 artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Michael Richards, and French artist Aïda Bruyere, who will demonstrate the transcultural reach of dancehall culture, which is very active in Paris. Through various mediums such as publications, installations, printed images, performance, sound, and video, Bruyere will probe the challenges of representing individual and collective identities in public spaces.   

Aïda Bruyère 

Born in Dakar and raised in Bamako, Aïda Bruyère draws inspiration from nightlife culture, femininity, and street aesthetics. A graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris, she explores identity and emancipation through publishing, performance, and installations. Her work blends fanzine culture, makeup, dance, and political engagement. She teaches screen printing and regularly leads workshops for teens. Aïda has exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, Saatchi Gallery, and won the Grand Prize at the 64th Salon de Montrouge. 

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Photo: RBX Game © Nicolas Dewitte / LaM  

This project is comprised of a poetic and minimalist short film by artist Enrique Ramírez set in the desert between the United States and Mexico. The film centers on the act of leaving water in this inhospitable landscape and is inspired by the women who distribute water to migrants crossing the border.  The project is part of Ramírez’s exhibition at the Grand Central Art Center, where he plans to develop an in-depth investigation on water as a narrative and symbolic axis. This exploration will include interviews with migrants who have crossed the desert and the women who, to this day, distribute water in these territories as an act of solidarity and resistance. At the same time, the project will address the devastating issue of wildfires in California, connecting the scarcity of water in the desert with broader climatic and ecological challenges. 

Enrique Ramírez 

Enrique Ramírez is a Franco-Chilean artist working between Paris and Santiago who blends video, sound, photography, and installation into poetic, politically charged narratives. His work often centers on the sea as a space of memory and migration. A Venice Biennale participant (2017) and Marcel Duchamp Prize nominee (2020), he is currently in residence at the Villa Médicis (2025–2026).

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Photo: Enrique Ramirez, Drop in the Desert, stills for anticipated video installation 2025, courtesy of the artist 

This major exhibition by French artist Laurent Grasso will take place at Mass MOCA’s iconic Building 5 space starting in fall 2026. This will be Grasso’s largest U.S. exhibition to date, developed in collaboration with Chief Curator Denise Markonish and MASS MoCA’s art fabrication team. Conceived as an immersive labyrinth, the exhibition will integrate Grasso’s films, sculptures, and paintings, exploring hidden energies, environmental concerns, and humans’ relationship to time. Metaphysical Maze will bring together the largest-ever number of Grasso’s films – including his newest one – within a single exhibition.    

Laurent Grasso  

Born in France in 1972, Laurent Grasso has developed a fascination with the visual possibilities related to the science of electromagnetic energy, radio waves, and naturally occurring phenomena. Grasso is the recipient of the Meru Art*Science Award bestowed in Bergamo, Italy; the Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres distinction; and the Marcel Duchamp Prize. His work is the subject of a major monograph, Laurent Grasso: Soleil Double, published by Dilecta in 2015.

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Photo: Laurent Grasso. ARTIFICIALIS. the work is accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity. HD film with sound, 27 minutes, 33 seconds, dimensions variable, edition of 5 with 2 APs (#3/5)(LG-V.20.1963.3)

The exhibition– the first museum exhibition of the artist’s on the U.S. West Coast–will include both existing works and new commissions, offering Ismailova the opportunity to create new projects. While her film work is profound, her new exploration of sculptural and textile works and the commitment to displaying film as objects creates fertile ground for a new exhibition. Rooted in the post-Soviet contexts of Central Asia, Ismailova’s work explores the historically complex region with an emphasis on the experiences of women.   

Saodat Ismailova 

Working between Paris and Tashkent, Saodat Ismailova is a filmmaker and artist who weaves together myths, rituals, and dreams rooted in Central Asian culture. Her work spans film, sound, installation, and sculpture, blending archival materials and striking imagery to explore suppressed knowledge systems and spiritual memory. Centering female narratives, she crafts poetic stories that reflect on history, environment, and collective consciousness. 

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Photo: Saodat Ismailova, Zukhra, 2013, HD video installation, 30 min., color, stereo. Installation view. Photo: Studio Hans Wilschut. 

Hello World explores key works and moments in software art, highlighting emergent aesthetics, influential communities, and transformative moments from the introduction of the personal computer to the present day. The project is structured around select practices—demoscene, language & poetry, glitch and malware, sound and music, money as a medium, other intelligence, and climate hackers—creating links across time and between past and present.  

The show features Neïl Beloufa’s GAS, a gamified installation combining sculpture, video, and responsive elements to examine user behaviors and social media algorithms. Using an AI model, GAS will dynamically adjust its content according to the players’ choices, thus imitating the way algorithms distribute information, often reinforcing prejudices and dividing societies. The changes in politics, energy, climate and the economy caused by these different movements will appear in the background.   

Neïl Beloufa   

Neïl Beloufa is a French-Algerian filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist. His multifaceted practice addresses themes of geopolitics, technology, urbanism, and ideology through layered projects that combine video, sculpture, social participation, and often dynamic processes like sensor activation or algorithmic control. His dynamic, participatory installations have been exhibited globally, including at MoMA, Palais de Tokyo, and the Venice Biennale.

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Photo: NEÏL BELOUFA, HUMANITIES, INSTALLATION VIEW, 2024. PHOTO BY BOB.

Alison Knowles. A Retrospective will present over 200 works from the renowned artist’s diverse career, spanning from her early intermedia works in the 1960s to participatory and relational art in the 2000s. This comprehensive exhibition is the first to fully showcase the breadth of Knowles’ practice, offering new audiences a chance to experience her groundbreaking contributions to art. Key performance highlights will include Celebration Red a participatory event where the public is invited to contribute red objects, affirming the everyday nature of art. Other performances will include Make a Salad or Make a Soup, The Identical Lunch, and Simultaneous Bean Readings, all part of a weekend event in November 2025. These performances, rooted in the Fluxus movement, will be reactivated during the exhibition, allowing the public to engage with Knowles’ work in a dynamic, communal context.  

Alison Knowles 

Alison Knowles studied at Pratt Institute and Syracuse University, where early influences from John Cage and Marcel Duchamp led her to embrace chance operations and found objects. A founding figure in Fluxus, she pioneered participatory art with works like Make a Salad (1962) and The Identical Lunch (1969). Her interdisciplinary practice spans event scores, sound works, artist’s books, printmaking, and large-scale installations, such as The Big Book and House of Dust—sculpture built upon one of the first computer-generated poems.

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Photo: Peter Moore, The Big Book, Something Else Gallery, New York, 1966; color photograph. © Northwestern University

This exhibition explores the work of American photographers Nydia Blas and Joshua Dudley Greer, alongside French artists (and Villa Albertine residents) Yohanne Lamoulère and Geoffroy Mathieu. The selected works offer a unique perspective on the cities of Marseille and Atlanta, each shaped by their histories and urban landscapes, with a focus on marginalized communities. The exhibition highlights how the artists responded to the rhythms of daily life in unfamiliar environments, exploring cultural regeneration, social challenges, and the impact of geography and history on these southeastern capitals. 

Nydia Blas 

Nydia Blas is a visual artist and Assistant Professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Blas uses photography, collage, video, and books to explore themes of sexuality, intimacy, and identity through a Black feminine lens. Her work has been commissioned by major publications like The New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar. She recently released her first monograph, Love You Came from Greatness with ITI Press. 

Joshua Dudley Greer 

Joshua Dudley Greer is a photographer and educator at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. His work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Le Monde. Greer has received grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Aaron Siskind Foundation, and has published two monographs: Somewhere Along the Line (2019) and The Makeshift City (2024). 

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Photo: Courtesy of the artist. © Nydia Blas

Katya Kirilloff’s upcoming solo exhibition at Les Bains-Douches will present a new body of work informed by her collaborative and curatorial approach. Les Bains-Douches, known for supporting emerging and alternative artists, dovetails with Kirilloff’s close involvement with the independent art space Freddy, founded by her partner, Joshua Abelow, in 2014.  Both spaces amplify experimental artists who fall outside of traditional institutional circuits. The exhibition also connects with Les Bain Douches’ educational initiatives, particularly their media programs for schoolchildren. Kirilloff’s work, which explores global commodity dynamics, offers visitors an opportunity to engage critically with the processes of production and circulation in a globalized world. 

Katya Kirilloff 

Katya Kirilloff (b. 1976) is a photographer and artist based in Harris, New York. Kirilloff has had solo and dual exhibitions at venues including Gene’s Dispensary in Los Angeles, Parapet Real Humans in St. Louis, and Romantic Acquaintances in Great Barrington, MA. Her recent group exhibitions include OPaf 6 at Gene’s Dispensary and Shoot for the Stars in Long Island City. Her work has been featured in various publications, including KCRW, Contemporary Art Daily, and Artnet. 

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Photo: Katya Kirilloff, Can of Worms, 2022, Colored pencil on paper, 5.5 x 8.4375 inches

Rachel Adams aims at fostering curatorial practices that engage deeply with contemporary art’s intersection with time, science, and nature. She will conduct in-depth research with artist Noémie Goudal, establishing a critical foundation for a future exhibition and accompanying catalogue. 

Rachel Adams 

Rachel Adams is Chief Curator and Director of Programs at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. She previously held curatorial roles at UB Art Galleries, Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, and Arthouse at the Jones Center. Adams holds an MA from SFAI and a BFA from SAIC, focusing her research on the intersections of contemporary art, architecture, performance, and new media. She has organized major exhibitions, such as Wanderlust, Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Drop Scene, and Introducing Tony Conrad (co-curated), and has worked with artists like Ragnar Kjartansson, Stephanie Syjuco, and Ekene Ijeoma. Her writing appears in Artforum, Art Papers, Modern Painters, and multiple exhibition catalogues.

Photo: © Robert Duncan

Research for this project will focus on the intersections of rave culture, sonic worldbuilding, and contemporary art practices within France, particularly among artists from the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region and its diaspora. This aligns with Cuguoğlu’s upcoming exhibition, Raving into the Future, at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.   

Naz Cuguoğlu 

Naz Cuguoğlu works as a curator of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, where her work explores themes of intersectional identities and diasporic experiences. In 2024, she was appointed to co-curate the inaugural American Pavilion at the 15th Gwangju Biennale and received the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Curatorial Research Award. Her curatorial experience includes exhibitions and programs at documenta fifteen, the 15th Istanbul Biennial, the Taiwan Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. She has previously held roles at institutions, such as KADIST, The Wattis Institute, de Young Museum, and SFMOMA. Her writings have appeared in Art Asia Pacific, Hyperallergic, and Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. As a co-founder of Collective Çukurcuma, she experiments with collaborative curatorial practices through reading groups and international exhibitions.

Photo: Courtesy of the curator. 

The aim of this project is to conduct research on video artists currently working in Paris who explore French colonial histories through time-based media. Ashton Cooper wishes to devote a year of programming (titled Avant d’oublier: Video Art from Paris) to three individual single-channel solo exhibitions at the Des Moines Art Center. 

Ashton Cooper 

Ashton Cooper is a curator of modern and contemporary art committed to Queer, feminist, and anti-racist approaches to art historical thinking. She joined the Des Moines Art Center as Associate Curator in October 2024 after previous positions at the Hammer Museum, MOCA, and the Getty Research Institute, all in Los Angeles. Her recent projects include the exhibition Jennifer Bolande, Mona Hatoum, Alison Saar at the Hammer Museum and catalogue essays on Catherine Opie for the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP) and on Renate Bertlmann for the Belvedere 21 in Vienna. Cooper earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and B.A. from Barnard College.

Photo: © Sadie Spezzano