Video by documentarian & alum Trey Burns, underwritten by the Corsicana Visitors’ Bureau.
SABRINA BASTEN - Berlin, Germany – 3rd Floor Studio
Sabrina’s work deals with antithesis and synthesis. Conceptually, she brings together old and new in her ceramic practice, which involves intuitively assembling porcelain ware into upright sculptures. These fragile warriors tap into memory, nostalgia, the material and aesthetic culture of kitsch, and the human nodes of storytelling. Sourcing from antique shops, estate sales, but also gifts from the community (at times objects passed down from generations), Sabrina seeks objects with a past—vessels that hold and carry. She reevaluates and reframes domesticity and practices of collecting through an alchemy of symbols; her pieces function as capsules of time and place. / At 100W, Sabrina has tapped into her strengths in associative thinking, event organizing (through the public, community-building forum of her Conversas series, iterations of which she orchestrated at Storefront), and translating stories into material objects, including her sculptures and a series of watercolors inspired by the topography and colors of the Texas landscape. www.sabrinabasten.com
CARLOS ZERPA - Caracas, Venezuela – 2nd Floor Studio
Carlos is a screenwriter, creative producer, director and street artist whose creative practice emerges at the intersection of storytelling, visual arts, and social justice in South America and the Caribbean. His work seeks to empower underrepresented characters by creating transgressive, engaging, and irreverent stories. In 2010 he co-founded Mecha Cooperative, a team with which he has co-created several award-winning street arts, editorial, and animation projects. While his subjects remain geographically circumscribed, he targets universality. / During his time in Corsicana, his focus has been multi-part. He has worked on a feature-length animation (with collaborators hailing from Benin, Venezuela, France, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic) centered on a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) and evoking the history and powers of the spiritual practice of voodoo. He has also been finishing editing an animated documentary he co-wrote and directed that underscores the prevalence of state violence in Chile by following the stories of two immigrant women whose arrival and disappearance in Chile parallel each other. Using storyboarding, computer editing, and projection, Carlos has divided his time between collaborative endeavors. www.mecha.pro
GREGORY MERTL - New Milford, Connecticut – Writing Studio
Gregory’s music is deeply embedded within the European tradition and his love for music of the past. His organic creative process—constructing a musical architecture from the initial statement to the final gesture—comes out of his preoccupation with how one musical moment flows into another and how this results in an overarching musical narrative. His musical language is characterized by a very personal approach to harmony, the importance of contrast and surprise, and music that doesn’t shy away from being highly emotive. Coming from his dual French-Hungarian background, his music emphasizes French color, harmony, and texture and Hungarian rhythmic vitality and modal inflection. He has received commissions from the Tanglewood Music Center, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Phoenix Symphony, and the Big Ten Wind Ensembles and has a Ph.D from the Eastman School of Music. / In Corsicana, Gregory is exploring music that emanates from the inner life. He has completed “Nocturne to Quiet the Childish Heart,” the first movement of a solo piano piece entitled Two Nocturnes. He is at work on its companion piece, “Nocturne to Quiet the Child’s Heart.” www.gregorymertl.com
TRICIA PARK - alumna - Chicago, Illinois – Writers House
A Korean-American writer and Julliard-trained classical violinist, Tricia lifts the veil of cultural universalism that classical music hides behind. In an effort to confront the harmful anti-Asian stereotypes and model minority myths she encounters as a professional classical musician, Tricia’s writing probes Western imperialism’s effects on East Asian communities both at home and in diaspora. Beneath the exquisite melodies of Bach, a culture war persists that affects notions of class, beauty, and what constitutes real music and by extension real people. Tricia addresses these complexities with clarity and insight in her podcast, Is it Recess Yet: Confessions of a Former Child Prodigy. Tricia received her MFA in writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was awarded a 2021 U.S. Fulbright Grant in Creative Writing (Seoul, Korea) as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant. She is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois Chicago's Program for Writers. / For her third residency in Corsicana, alumna Tricia is at work on a novel that frames the challenges of classical music training in elite, prestigious spaces as a human drama wrought with a clear-eyed, trenchant yet humanist understanding of context. www.triciapark.com
Tricia Park performs in Fall 2023 Open Studios.
JAMESON RICH - Brooklyn, New York - Writing Studio
Jameson is a nonfiction writer whose work delves into culture, with a particular focus on film and television culture as well as the intersections between the medical field and human lives. Blending memory, research, and theory, his practice probes universal vulnerabilities in both essays and criticism. During the residency, Jameson continued his work on his memoir manuscript, tentatively titled Bad Heart, about his own experiences growing up in the healthcare system and the trajectory of modern medicine, through the lens of the congenital cardiac field. Jameson is a writer and filmmaker living in Brooklyn, NY. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vox, InsideHook, The Outline, and more. He was a 2021 artist-in-residence at Yaddo. www.jamesonrich.com