Big Sky Workshop is rooted in Community.

PLACE

Big Sky Workshop is based in New York City and works with artists and students all over the world. Art Club 3000 serves students in the Queensbridge Houses, the largest housing projects in North America, in the LIC/Astoria neighborhood of Queens, NY.

PEOPLE

We are comprised of an incredible network of arts educators, cultural workers and professionals and we believe deeply in the power of individualized and personal work. Mentorship, project support, and instruction, is invaluable and we are grateful to provide this service to artists and students of all ages. These key people have been essential to our support and development as we continue to grow.

Anna Adler - Big Sky Workshop Collective

Anna Adler is an artist, educator, cultural worker, and mother, functioning at the intersection of life and art. She maintains an interdisciplinary creative practice of image and object making, curating, and community building. Anna has nearly 20 years of teaching experience that spans toddlers to older adults and almost everyone in between. Currently, she works with several organizations in the Hudson Valley and NYC, including Bethany Arts Community, Sunshine Home for Children, The Rewilding School, DOROT, and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Her work has been shown in a myriad of places and spaces, including NYC, Philly, Prague, and Berlin, to name a few.

Lashawn “Suga Ray” Marston - Big Sky Advisory Board, Summer Program Partner, Film Instructor

Lashawn “Suga Ray” Marston is an artist and activist dedicated to community building through storytelling, filmmaking, and spoken word. He is currently serving as an Artist-in-Residence at MoMA PS1, and his work has been featured at Flux Factory and the Museum of the Moving Image, as well as in local New York City magazines. He has been honored for his community work with two New York City proclamations; first for his personal transformation and commitment to community empowerment in 2012, and in 2014 for his initiative “Bless the Corners” which honored those lost to homicide in Queensbridge. He is frequently featured in local media outlets for his organizing work and mutual aid such as the ongoing Wellness Wednesday vegan food distribution and health empowerment initiative, Healthier Hood. Suga Ray is committed to using media and arts-based solutions to address systemic issues of racial and social injustice. Through art and community organizing, Suga Ray is actively building a world that centers community safety and care.

Lauren Noelle Oliver - Big Sky Workshop Collective

Lauren Noelle Oliver is a New York City-based multidisciplinary artist who uses photography, filmmaking and performance to explore cultural collision, inspired by her own family’s multifaceted heritage. With a Puerto Rican mother and grandmother, Filipino father and Cuban grandfather, Lauren was directly exposed to multiple cultures in her childhood home. Her work examines her family’s dynamic, often highlighting the differences and similarities across those varied cultures and the lingering effects she has discovered in her adulthood. She is dedicated to creatively utilizing analog equipment and processes, primarily executing her photo and videography in 35mm, 16mm and 8mm film formats. Lauren earned a BFA in photography at SUNY Purchase, graduating summa cum laude and received the university's award for Excellence in Photography. Lauren currently works at the Gowanus Community Darkroom as an Instructor offering private lessons in camera basics, black and white film processing, and darkroom printing.

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Kerry da Silva Cox - Founder, Director, Instructor

Kerry da Silva Cox is the founder of Big Sky and an interdisciplinary artist + teacher. She is excited to bring her love of the LIC/Astoria community, the NYC arts landscape, and 15 years of teaching experience to Big Sky Workshop. Kerry has exhibited and performed in venues including A.I.R. (Brooklyn, NY), the Berkley Museum of Art (Berkley, CA), and Duke University (Durham, NC). In 2021, she was a recipient of a City Corps Grant, with which she self-produced a pop-up exhibition, panel, and educational program. Kerry holds an MFA in Visual Art and an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism from SUNY Purchase.

 

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş - Big Sky Workshop Collective, Instructor

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş is a hybrid artist wandering between San Francisco, New York, and London. She is a writer for Dance Art Journal (with past commissions from Sadlers Wells, The Place, and Rich Mix London) and a future Djerassi Resident Artist. Her dance films have been screened worldwide with kNOwBOX Dance Film Festival, Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, FilmFest by Rogue Dancer, SzólóDuó International Dance Festival, and room83spring. Her current project, Scene R-eco-ver, is a multi-media love letter to California premiering at World Stage Design in August 2022 (Calgary, Alberta). Her ongoing project, strikethrough, is a digital platform where poets can generate choreographic scores for dancers — installations of strikethrough have been exhibited at NYU Tisch, the Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art, SAFEhouse Arts, Interdisciplinary Arts Collective, and Noori/TWIG Media Lab and have been adapted for the Choreographic Writing course curriculum at Big Sky. Maxine graduated Magna Cum Laude from NYU Tisch with a B.F.A. in Dance and a Minor in English. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Dance Philosophy & History at University of Roehampton.