Tufts University Art Galleries: How do you throw a brick through the window…: About the Exhibiting Artists

Photo credit: Yani aviles, Acknowledgments, 2022. Installation, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.

Yani aviles is a transdisciplinary artist whose practice is a form of medicine making. Their work is influenced by a liberation praxis, and they research, write, and create contemplative installations and conceptual pieces to transform states of crisis into moments for healing. They challenge traditional systems of knowledge production and dissemination by employing multimedia, multisensory, and embodied decolonial approaches. Yani has exhibited their work in Chicago, New York, and Berlin, at venues such as Apparatus Projects, The Block Museum, Adds Donna, and The Institut für Alles Mögliche, among others. They hold a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA in Art Theory and Practice from Northwestern University, and have received foundational Reiki and Herbalism certifications. Additionally, Yani has over 15 years of experience in meditation (mindfulness, metta, visualization) and embodiment (yoga, qigong, breathwork) practices.

Photo credit: Nat Decker, Weak in the Knees (Poly-pusher), 2024. Steel, chrome ball, sculpt epoxy, vinyl, gauze, paint. Image courtesy of the artist.

Nat Decker (they/them) is a Chicago-born Los Angeles-based artist interpreting the intimacies of queer and disabled experience as provocation toward collective care and liberation. Working critically with technology, they identify the computer as an assistive tool affording a more accessible and capacious practice and the virtual as a space of potential which often mirrors patterns of exploitation and exclusion. Their practice fundamentally integrates accessibility as a generative medium.

Working with computational and sculptural processes, they trace serpentine connections between the body and modes of technology, reimagining fantastical mobility devices as cultural expansion and agitation of conventional desirability politics. These non-functional devices operate as aesthetic scrutiny and frictional commentary on designations of usefulness and capitalistic innovation.

Nat is a 2024 Eyebeam Democracy Machine Fellow with their collective Cripping_CG, a Y10 member of NEW INC and was a 2023 Processing Foundation Fellow. They are also an access worker, consulting on accessibility for various arts organizations. In June 2022, they graduated from UCLA with a degree in Design|Media Arts and Disability Studies.

Photo credit: Carly Mandel, Prototypes, 2019–2022. Ceramics on shoe benches, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.

Carly Mandel (1992) is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist whose sculptures explore hypercapitalism and health. In 2015, she received her BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Her sculptures have been shown nationally and internationally. Mandel received a VSA Emerging Artists Grant from the Kennedy Center in 2018. She was a 2019 recipient of a Visiting Artist Fellowship from UrbanGlass. Mandel was a 2021 resident of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. She was featured in BOMB Magazine in 2018 and Art in America in 2021. Mandel has shown with Canada, PPOW, Klaus von Nichtssagend, Someday Gallery, 500 Gallery, Fragment, and others. In 2015, she received her BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR. Her sculptures have been shown nationally and internationally. Mandel received a VSA Emerging Artists Grant from the Kennedy Center in 2018. She was a 2019 recipient of a Visiting Artist Fellowship from UrbanGlass. Mandel was a 2021 resident of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. She was featured in BOMB in 2018 and Art in America in 2021. Mandel has shown with Canada, PPOW, Klaus von Nichtssagend, Someday Gallery, 500 Gallery, Fragment, and others.

Photo credit: Chloe P. Crawford, Buddy System, 2020. Installation, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist.

Chloe P. Crawford is an interdisciplinary artist highlighting the labor disabled people undertake to set the conditions for their existence in public spaces. Her work is often exhibited in relation to her perpetually-seated sight-line, challenging conceptions of lowness as a place to be overlooked or convey abjection. She has shown at the Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt, DE), Artists Space (New York, NY), VAE (Raleigh, NC), and HUA (Berlin, DE). She received fellowships from Ragdale Foundation, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Vermont Studio Center. She has a BFA from The University of the Arts (RIP), an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Studio Program. It took her 19 years to obtain enough work credits to qualify to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance.

Photo credit: Jeff Kasper, things remembered (I look fabulous but I’m in a lot of pain), 2023. Etched compact mirror, 5 in. circumference. Image courtesy of the artist.

Jeff Kasper (he/him/his) is an artist, writer, and educator. Through public art, publications, participatory learning, and design, he works to make tangible the creative potentials of accessibility, social support, and trauma-aware culture. His artworks center dialogical, reflective, and instructional texts that prompt contemplation, relationship building, and serious play. Recent projects have been presented with New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, ArtBridge, and Meta Open Arts, moCa Cleveland, DisArt at ArtPrize, and Queens Museum. He has received fellowships and awards from National Arts Strategies (NAS), MASS MoCA Assets for Artists and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, and New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA). Kasper has served as a peer-mentor and facilitated workshops throughout the United States and internationally. He often collaborates with institutions and organizations to develop meaningful engagements with disability culture and community. Kasper is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Department of Art.

Photo credit: Jeffery Meris, Lift Up Your Head, 2024. Stainless steel, underarm crutches, zip-ties, 156 x 156 x 156 in. Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly Gallery. Photo by Marc Tatti.

Jeffrey Meris (b. 1991, Haiti, raised in the Bahamas) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with the relationship between materiality and larger cultural and social phenomenon. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing, Meris’s work considers ecology, embodiment, and various lived experiences, while healing deeply personal and historical wounds. Meris earned an AA in arts and crafts from the University of the Bahamas in 2012, a BFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in 2015, and an MFA in visual arts from Columbia University in 2019. Meris has exhibited at the Amon Carter Museum, Texas (2023); the Aldrich Contemporary, Connecticut (2023); Lehman Maupin, New York (2022); James Cohan Gallery, New York (2021); White Columns, New York (2021); the Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco (2020); Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany (2017); and the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, the D'Aguilar Art Foundation, and Mestre Projects, all in Nassau, Bahamas (2012, 2017, 2021). Meris is a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alum (2019); a NXTHVN Studio Fellow, New Haven (2020); and a Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program artist in residence, Brooklyn (2021); and a Studio Museum in Harlem artist in residence 2022–2023. Always Jeffrey never "Jeff."

Photo credit: Libby Paloma, For the Starry-Eyed, For the Healers, 2023. Fabric, metal armature, polyfill, 18 x 16 x 6 ft. Image courtesy of the artist.

Libby Paloma (she/they) has been an artist in residence at Space, Portland, ME; The Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and The Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY. Recently, Paloma was published in Visual Studies Journal and will be a panelist in this year’s 41st International Visual Sociology Conference in 2024 to discuss their project, Lo Que No Sabrías (What You Wouldn't Know) in Xalapa, Veracruz. Paloma's work has been exhibited at El Museo Del Barrio in New York, NY; Burlington City Arts (BCA), Burlington, VT; SOMArts in San Francisco, CA; SPACE Gallery, Portland, ME; Geary Contemporary, Millerton, NY, Unprofessional Variety Show, New York, NY, The University of Southern Maine in Gorham, ME, and the Dorsky Museum in New Paltz, NY. Paloma holds a Bachelor's Degree (BA) in Liberal Studies, a Master's Degree (MS) in Communicative Disorders from San Francisco State University, and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Parsons School of Design, The New School, where she received the President and University full Scholarship.