Wolfgang Buntrock

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Wolfgang Buntrock, born in 1957 in Hamburg, has long explored the relationship between landscape, craftsmanship, and artistic practice. Guided by the belief that “the landscape is a theme in my life,” Buntrock studied horticulture in Hanoverbefore working in practical fruit growing and landscaping. He later established himself as a freelance landscape architect, bringing a deep understanding of cultivated environments and natural forms into his creative work. Since 1997, Buntrock has worked as an artist, creating pieces that reflect his enduring connection to landscape and his appreciation for craftsmanship.

https://www.wolfgang-buntrock.de

Michele Rodda

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Dr Michele Rodda is an Italian plant biologist whose research focuses on Apocynaceae taxonomy and evolution in Southeast Asia. He is actively involved in botanical art curation at the Botanical Art Gallery and he is a committee member of the Botanical Art Society (Singapore).

Ayda Donne

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Ayda Donne is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at NYU and the Director of Grants and Research at Eighth Generation Consulting. His research centers on the relationship between Indigenous sovereignty, energy infrastructure, U.S. nuclear testing, and ideologies of containment and contamination.

Cristobal Ascencio

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Cristóbal Ascencio (Guadalajara, 1988) is a photographer and visual artist who is part of Mexico's National System of Creators (SNCA). His work explores the relationship between images and memory. With studies in Audiovisual Media (CAAV Jalisco) and Contemporary Photography (EFTI Madrid), his practice goes beyond traditional photography into virtual reality, data manipulation, and photogrammetry.

He has exhibited individually at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Spain (2025) and Getxo Photo Festival (2022), and collectively at Foam Amsterdam, Athens Photography Festival, Casa del Lago UNAM, and Deutsche Börse Foundation. Selected for FOAM Talent 2024-25, he won the First Prize FotoCanal Photography Book of the Community of Madrid (2024) and published Las flores mueren dos veces with Editorial Dispara (2025). His work is present in collections such as Art Vontobel and Fundación ENAIRE. His work has been published in FOAM Magazine, Exit, Aesthetica, and the British Journal of Photography.

https://www.cristobalascencio.com

Elaine Ng

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Elaine K. Ng makes artwork and writes to explore our relationships to place and how we locate ourselves. Working across sculpture, installation, photography, video, and textiles, she often incorporates materials from the sites she investigates and indulges her love of fundamental material culture and ecology. Projects take shape organically around material investigation, archival research, extended observation, and interviews. A bilingual, first-generation American, she approaches her practice as an ongoing effort in translation and is especially interested in embodied knowledge and the unspoken information that creates context.

Elaine is the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship for research in Taiwan and has been a fellow at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library; a resident at Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation, among others; and a Guest Artist at the Corning Museum of Glass. She exhibitsinternationally and has lectured and held visiting positions at NSCAD University, Tainan National University of the Arts, and the China Academy of Art. She holds a BA from the University of California, Davis, an MBA/MA from Southern Methodist University, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

https://www.elainekng.com

Sally Veach

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Sally Veach (b. 1962, Summit, NJ) creates contemplative landscape paintings that explore the place of humans within the sublime power of the natural world. Working from her studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA, she develops layered compositions that invite quiet reflection and moments of connection to the natural environment. At the same time, her process invites viewers to contemplate ecological and societal issues.

Veach’s current series, human Nature, combines atmospheric landscapes with delicate botanical patterns sourced from historic textile collections. Through careful research of museum archives, she develops custom stencils that layer natural motifs throughout her paintings, creating works that feel both timeless and deeply rooted in our shared relationship with nature. Her process builds multiple layers, allowing previous applications to show through like an historical palimpsest, suggesting the accumulation of eras alongside the enduring presence of nature in our lives. Canvas edges often fray into soft fringes, reinforcing the organic, plant based origins of the canvas.

Many pieces draw inspiration from Hudson River School painters, whose sublime landscapes invoked spiritual renewal but also promoted consequential ideas of manifest destiny. Combining symbolic references to the 18th and 19th centuries, Veach’s work celebrates the healing power of landscape at the same time as revealing the complex relationship between humans and nature.

Pablo Moroni

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Pablo Moroni is an Argentine assistant researcher at CONICET and botanist specializing in the taxonomy and systematics of South American Boraginaceae. Based in Argentina, key projects include the Flora Argentina project, focusing on the tribe Amsinckiinae and the genus Cryptantha.

Mel Gillman

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Melanie Gillman is a cartoonist. They hold an MFA in comics from the Center for Cartoon Studies and currently live in Columbus. Melanie is also the author of the lesbian western graphic novel Stage Dreams, available from Lerner Publishing Group/Graphic Universe. They are represented by Jen Linnan of Linnan Literary Management.

https://www.melaniegillman.com

Lili Nguyễn

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Ly Nguyen was driven by a desire to present a contemporary perspective on the natural world, breathing a modern view into traditional Botanical Art.

The main characteristic of her work is the beauty of species, which can balance both her insider conceptual notion and her love for national flora.  Ly believes the natural world and its biodiversity has a strong connection with humans, their systems and cultures. 

https://lynnguyenillustrat.wixstudio.com/my-site-3

Josiane Segar

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session IV

Dr. Josiane Segar is a British-German theatre-maker, performer and workshop facilitator. Her practice centres interdisciplinary collaborations between science, art, and society. She particularly loves devising work that explores themes of community, migration and nature conservation through physical theatre, comedy and ensemble. 

Josiane studied at the University of Oxford, obtained her PhD from iDivand received her acting diploma from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Recently, she also completed a Devising Directing intensive program in Berlin with Paul Budraitis.

She has directed, devised and performed in 15+ independent theatre productions and run several long-term interdisciplinary arts projects. Notable projects include Lebende Skulpturen, AnthropoScene, The Playhouse & Fairytales from Home. She has co-acquired over €100,000 for theatre and cultural projects in the last three years.

For her interdisciplinary work, she was recently awarded an arts-science residency by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in VA, USA, was awarded twice by the Tilia Awards, and was the recipient of an EXIST-Women scholarship. She also works as a voice actress and yoga teacher.

https://josianesegar.com

Kristin Zodrow

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Kristin Zodrow is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studies eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature and ecology.

Her research within the environmental humanities has been supported by the University of Chicago and the Dumbarton Oaks botanic garden and archive. Formerly a plant scientist, she maintains an interest in contemporary biological research by writing poetry about it.

Barbara Bosworth

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Barbara Bosworth is a photographer whose large-format images explore both overt and subtle relationships between humans and the natural world. Whether chronicling the efforts of hunters or bird banders or evoking the seasonal changes that transform mountains and meadows, Bosworth’s caring attention to the world around her results in images that inspire viewers to look closely.

Over her long career, Bosworth has photographed with a large-format 8x10 camera. Her single images display a generous attention to small facts, while her large-scale triptychs reveal a panoramic awareness, one that lets viewers glimpse relationships between frames across a wide field. All of Bosworth’s projects remind viewers not only that we shape nature but that it also shapes us.

Bosworth’s work has been widely exhibited, notably in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2024), Cleveland Museum of Art (2024), Denver Art Museum (2015), Peabody Essex Museum (2012), and Smithsonian American Art Museum (2008).

Bosworth’s monographs include The Meadow (2015), The Heavens (2018), and The Sea (2021) published by Radius Books. She has also published with Dust Collective, TIS Books, Datz Press, and MIT Press, among others.

Bosworth is the recipient of a 1995 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from The Cleveland Arts Prize. 

Bosworth grew up in Novelty, Ohio, and lives in Massachusetts, where she is Professor Emeritus of Photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

https://www.barbarabosworth.com

Qi Ming

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Qi Ming is a singer, songwriter, and producer who has cultivated her unique musical identity while growing up in China and later living in Sao Paulo and New York. Collaborating closely with musicians from diverse backgrounds hailing from Brazil, China, Cuba, and Japan, she has crafted three captivating albums that organically bring together indie pop, alternative rock, and a multicultural celebration of world music.

The debut album The Happiness of the Sisyphus achieved 2 Millions+ streams on NetEase Cloud Music (the largest Chinese streaming media) and awarded Silver album and Silver single, got on NetEase Billboards for 3 times.

After studying electronic production at Berklee College of Music, Qi Ming has become a versatile and collaborative cross-genre producer. Fueled by a passion for immersive and communal music, she expertly merges world music, organic sounds, intricate pop arrangements, and electronic textures. Qi Ming consistently pushes boundaries by combining her unique sound with the artistic visions of fellow musicians, infusing her evolving sound with elements of electronica.

https://www.qimingmusic.com

Melissa Range

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Melissa Range was born and raised in East Tennessee. She received a BA from the University of Tennessee–Knoxville in 1995, an MFA from Old Dominion University in 1998, and an MTS from Emory University in 2005.

Range is the author of three poetry collections: Printer’s Fist (Vanderbilt University Press, 2025), winner of the Vanderbilt University Literary Prize; Scriptorium (Beacon Press, 2016), selected for the National Poetry Series by Tracy K. Smith, and Horse and Rider (Texas Tech University Press, 2010). She has received awards and fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation, among other foundations.

Range currently teaches at Lawrence University and lives in Wisconsin.

https://melissarange.com

Melissa Mai

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Melissa Mai is a biophysicist and plant physiologist whose mission has been to understand and celebrate the fundamental, physical principles of biological phenomena through interdisciplinary research. She earned her B.A. in Biophysics and Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University. Her research draws from math, physics, biology, and materials science to explore how plants leverage their physical architecture to transport materials through their bodies across multiple scales and contexts, including agriculture, forestry, and climate change.

An advocate for greater public engagement with scientific research, she has worked with the Harvard Museum of Natural History to make science engaging and accessible through workshops, gallery tours, public talks, and multimedia content. She also completed a residency at Oak Spring Garden Foundation, engaging in conversations between artists and scholars in the humanities to explore the relationships between the botanical arts and sciences and human well-being. By facilitating discussions between researchers and non-researchers, she aims to contribute to a culture that fosters curiosity, wonder, and care for the natural world.

Imeña Valdes

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Imeña Valdes is midwestern transplant via Central and Southern Florida who received her Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Certificate in Agroecology from Florida International University (FIU). Since undergrad, she’s been passionate about studying plant-animal interactions working in various labs at FIU, the USDA ARS Subtropical Horticultural Research Station, Montgomery Botanical Center, Guangxi University, and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Imeña then moved to Chicago for graduate school and earned her Master of Science in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden where her research focused on pollinator preference between native and cultivated native (i.e., nativar) plants. Outside of her role with P2, she teaches environmental science in higher education, collects insects, and loves baking.

Kelsey Nolin

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Kelsey Nolin was raised on a small farm in the Appalachian foothills of Pennsylvania, an upbringing that fostered a deep attunement to the natural world and its rhythms, as well as an appreciation for the satisfaction of manual labor. These early influences continue to shape her artistic practice today. Her work is motivated by a connection to the land, frameworks of routine and repetition, and a consistent desire for physical engagement with artistic material. Through her practice, she re-examines the familiar hills and valleys of her home by exploring how concepts of space, landscape, and memory function as aspects of place-making.

While her work remains tied to photography’s historical associations with death, time, and preservation, Nolin embraces the subjective and emotionally driven aspects of memory and experience rather than presenting photography as an objective record of reality. To create many of her pieces, she integrates organic materials collected from her home directly into the photographic process. Oscillating between varying levels of recognition and abstraction, her final images evoke emotional tonalities of loss, melancholy, and nostalgia. By engaging with both cameraless and lens-based photographic processes, Nolin expands contemporary understandings of photography while drawing attention to the expressive potential of photographic papers and chemistry.

https://www.kelseynolinphotography.com

Sefra Alexandra, The Seed Huntress

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Sefra Alexandra The Seed Huntress has dedicated her life to the preservation of global seed biodiversity. With years of experience and a passion for her work, Sefra has become a leading voice in the field of seed conservation. Her tireless efforts have led to the creation of numerous seed banks and the development of new techniques for preserving our global seed heritage.

Sefra is dedicated to sharing her knowledge and expertise with others. Her engaging talks and workshops on the importance of seed conservation have inspired audiences around the globe. Whether you are a farmer, a gardener, or simply someone who cares about the future of our planet, Sefra's lectures will leave you with a deeper understanding of the crucial role that seeds play in our world.

https://www.seedhuntress.com

Ethan S. Evans

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

ethan s. evans (they/them) is a writer and photographer based in central Virginia, where they are a Health & Humanities Fellow through Virginia Humanities in partnership with the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics in the University of Virginia School of Medicine. ethan has received fellowships to study in the Plant Humanities Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks and the Cornell School of Criticism & Theory. They’ve held residencies at Oak Springs Garden Foundation, the Marble House Foundation, and Art Farm. They hold an MFA from the University of Virginia, where they were a Poe-Faulkner Fellow.

Prior to moving to Virginia, ethan worked in science communications and habitat restoration. They’ve also been a Production Intern at Copper Canyon Press, a Communications Intern at PromptPress, Web and Social Media Editor at Meridian, and Associate Poetry Editor at Narrative Magazine.

The University of Virginia is located on the ancestral, unceded land of the Monacan Indian Nation. This article by B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster is a good introduction to LandBack.

https://ethansevans.com

Bruce McKaig

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session III

Bruce McKaig has been a visual artist for over thirty years, living in North and South America, Europe, Siberia, and India. Initially using photography, his practice also explores sculpture, time-based, performance, and advocacy work on art and socioeconomic issues. He has been awarded numerous private and public grants from the City of Paris, Washington DC, and Baltimore MD. He has participated in over forty-five solo and two hundred group exhibitions since 1980 and has works in museum collections in the USA, France, and Guatemala.

Bruce has taught art in universities, museums, and community centers, working with the general public, senior citizens, autistic teenagers, and incarcerated psychiatric patients. He has over ten years experience in teaching the arts to children ages 5 through 12. He regularly lectures and writes on photography, and has curated group and solo exhibitions of other artists’ work since 1988.

Since 2000, he has devoted time to public art projects and advocating for ethical funding policies in the arts and across all industries. Bruce was a 2016 New Economy Maryland Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, working on funding policies and practices in the arts. He received the 2016 Crusade for Art Engagement Grant to build a barter network between artists and tradespeople in Baltimore. He was awarded a 2018 Mayor’s Individual Artist Grant from the City of Baltimore, for his work on art and labor practices. During his Equal Justice Residency in 2018 at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Bruce used photography, videography, writing, performance and Social Practices to investigate methods of measuring and compensating workers for their presence and contributions to communities at large.

He currently teaches in the Art & Art History Department at Georgetown University and lives at Artists’ Housing Inc. in East Baltimore.

https://www.brucemckaig.com/