Blockbustersssssssss

Blockbusters is a video and new media art collective based in NYC collating the work of members with cultural roots in several countries including Australia, Chile, Iran, Ireland, India, Israel, Pakistan, and USA.

Formed in 2021, Blockbusters exists as an interconnected group of artists who show work together and provide mutual support. The group also nurtures a broader community of artists in NYC via monthly critique-centered meetings, pedagogical workshops, and experimental physical and networked publications. Our regular meetings provide a metronome of support for our members’ practices, fostering an environment of deep trust and growth.

Members have shown at venues such as Ars Electronica, Linz; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam; Pioneer Works, New York; The Portland Biennial; The Queens Museum, New York; SFMOMA, San Francisco. Our members have received institutional support from Akademie Schloss Solitude, Digital Earth Fellowship, Eyebeam, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, NEW INC, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and United States Artists.

Our collective asks:

what does it mean to support and care for one another within the bounds of late capitalism and the sociopolitical boundaries that confine us?

In Blockbusters we have created a community rooted in love, solidarity, and radical care through reciprocal professional development sessions, monthly critique meetings, and shared transparency within our creative practices. This sense of belonging and commitment to each other has kept us connected for 4 years, beyond our related media and themes.

Individually, our members leverage new media technologies and research-based practices of de-colonial, eco-feminist, crip, and queer world-building. Blockbusters is informed from this perspective; together we imagine these radical futures and practice a commitment to building a community of support and tenderness.

\\Bios

Camila GalazCamila Galaz is an Australian-Chilean multidisciplinary artist, writer, and media archaeologist based in New York. Her work looks at social histories of technology, memory and identity through media archives, and reconsiderations of cultural touchstones and mythologies. She is the creator and co-host of the tech history podcast Our Friend the Computer (Media Archaeology Lab, University of Colorado), a founding member of the Superkilogirls research group (Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam), a contributing editor of the Millennium Film Journal, and a Y10 Incubator Member at NEW INC (New Museum, New York).

Dakota Gearhart Dakota Gearhart is an artist, animator, and educator based in New York City. She creates a collaborative video series called "Life Touching Life" that invites scientists, researchers, and caretakers to share observations on consciousness and its relationship to biodiversity. Her work has been supported by the New Museum’s NEW INC program, United States Artists, Franklin Furnace, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as Queens Museum, NY; Bronx Museum of Art, NY; Horse Hospital, London; Xanadu, Berlin; and I-House, Tokyo, Japan. She teaches with the Integrated Design Media program at New York University.

Bahareh KhoshooeeBahareh Khoshooee is a multidisciplinary artist, feminist activist, and Assistant Profeesor at Pratt Institute. Born in Tehran, Iran in the year the Internet was made available for unrestricted commercial use. Born in Tehran, Iran, in the year the Internet was made available for unrestricted commercial use, Khoshooee uses digital time-based strategies in presenting work that fuses 3D environments, video projection mapping, sculpture, performance, and sound. Khoshooee’s practice explores the complex dualities of technology: its oppressive role in surveilling, documenting, and criminalizing marginalized bodies, and its radical potential as a site of resistance and collective healing. Khoshooee has exhibited her work internationally including at Baxter St CCNY, The Elizabeth Foundation for The Arts, The Orlando Museum of Art, Rawson Projects, and the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Artnet News, Vice, and The Creators Project. She attended Skowhegan School of Art and Painting in 2018.

Jonah KingJonah King is an Irish Interdisciplinary Artist and Assistant Professor of Interactive Digital Media at Stevens Institute of Technology. Through emerging technologies: artificial intelligence, virtual reality, motion capture, and digital avatars, King conjures multifaceted world-building projects that trace speculative futures and human/non-human relations. Born in Ireland, based in Brooklyn, King has exhibited internationally at venues such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art and New York Jewish Museum, and received official selections at Oberhausen and London Motion Picture Awards. Recent solo exhibitions include GBA (Brooklyn), Rockford Art Museum (Chicago) NCAD Gallery (Dublin), University Galleries (Illinois), Clima (Milan), Weekend (Seoul), and Meyohas (New York). King is a 2023 fellow at Sacatar Foundation, Brazil. King holds a BFA from NCAD, an MFA from Columbia University, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.

Umber MajeedUmber Majeed is a multidisciplinary visual artist and educator. She received her MFA from Parsons the New School for Design in 2016 and graduated from Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan in 2013. Her writing, animation, and installations engage with familial archives to explore Pakistani state, urban, and digital infrastructure through a feminist lens. Majeed has shown in and worked with venues across Pakistan, North America, and Europe. She has had three solo exhibitions; ‘In the Name of Hypersurface of the Present’, Rubber Factory, New York (2018) and ‘Trans-Pakistan Zindabad (Facts about the Earth)’, 1708 Gallery, Richmond, Virgina (2021), and ‘Made in Trans-Pakistan’, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY. Majeed is a recipient of numerous fellowships including the HWP Fellowship, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon (2017), Refiguring Feminist Futures Web Residency, Akademie Schloss Solitude & ZKM, Germany (2018), the Digital Earth Fellowship, Hivos, the Netherlands (2018-19), and the Technology Residency, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2020). Currently, she is a Queens Museum- Jerome Fellow for 2024-25.

Gal NissimGal Nissim is an interdisciplinary artist and a researcher who bridges art, science, and technology to create interactive work. Nissim’s work is motivated by a deep fascination with humans’ relations with non-human animals. She examines these relations as instances of environmental harm and racism. As an immigrant feminist, Nissim is eager to raise conversations across borders and to tell the stories of those who can’t advocate for themselves. Nissim received her Master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Culture & Animals Foundation, NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts, ARTPORT Residency, Microsoft Design Expo Challenge, Experimental Storytelling research group by NYU and Google, Tisch GSO, and the Weizmann Institute of Science for outstanding young researchers. Currently, she is a member of NEW INC’s Creative Science Track.

Surabhi SarafSurabhi Saraf is a media artist, composer and founder of Centre for Emotional Materiality. Her practice explores our complex relationship with technology using embodiment as a tool and the body as a site for transformation. Surabhi is the recipient of the Eureka Fellowship Award by the Fleishhacker Foundation (2015), the Djerassi Resident Artist Award (2012) and the Artist + Process + Ideas Residency at Mills College Art Museum (2016). She was a 2019 Technology Resident at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, and 2020 resident at HarvestWorks, NY. She has performed at the Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Biennial, Greece, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, NETMAGE 10 International Live Media Festival (Bologna), and Soundwave Biennial ((5)), SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Her videos have been shown at TIMES SQUARE, New York**,** Blanton Museum, Austin, the Hunter Museum of American Art Chattanooga, TN among others. Surabhi lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Ryan WoodringRyan Woodring is compelled by his body’s furtive miscalibration to use digital technologies endemic to medical imaging and visual effects to push up against the limits of visual representation and find sustained agency for unpredictable modes of being wrought by invisible illness. Woodring earned his MFA from Rutgers University and is currently Assistant Professor of Digital Studies at Drew University, New Jersey. He co-founded Prequel, a free low-residency in Portland, Oregon. Woodring has exhibited and spoken internationally in various contexts such as Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, The International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, and the Portland Biennial.