This fall, Urban Arts Space is delighted to welcome back Community Artists-in-Residence Arris’ J. Cohen and Ajanaé Dawkins to continue their residencies through early 2025. Both artists will receive additional stipends thanks to the generous support of the Office of Lisa Florman, Vice Provost for the Arts at The Ohio State University. 

The Community Artist-in-Residence Program offers funding and opportunities to support community-centered arts and culture projects, recognizing outstanding local artists. Rather than offering studio space, the residency focuses on realizing the visions of artists for whom the community is their studio.

Arris’ Cohen—an acclaimed visual artist, muralist, and teacher—accomplished numerous projects during his time as the inaugural Community Artist-in-Residence across 2023. Arris’ completed a collaborative mural project with the students of Moler Elementary; curated the ORIGINS exhibition at Wild Goose Creative; participated in a public art panel; and organized Artist Commune: Roots and Rhythms, a free art-making event. His culminating exhibition at Urban Arts Space, Fervent Fruition, showcased his signature Afrofuturistic paintings alongside a live skating performance. Arris’s residency website includes an online archive of his exhibition, along with photos of each project and various media interviews. 

Ajanaé Dawkins was welcomed into the fold in early 2024, bringing poetry, spoken word, and Black archival practices into the spotlight. Ajanaé began her residency by curating a pop-up exhibition, Portable Paradise, which coincided with a poetry celebration featuring headliners Roger Robinson and Cynthia Amoah, along with Ajanaé herself. In the summer, Ajanaé filled the gallery walls with poetry, photography, short films, and interactive installations in her final exhibition, No One Teaches Us How to Be Daughters, in addition to inviting six other local Black artists and poets to share the space. Ajanaé’s residency website presents an online archive of her work. 

Projects born of the residency extension will include a free four-week docu-poetics workshop taught by Ajanaé across October and November, in addition to an art and writing workshop for high school students hosted by both artists in November. Arris’ and Ajanaé also plan to present a joint project and a collaborative publication in early 2025. 

This program extension reflects the changes coming to the Community Artist-in-Residence Program in 2025. Instead of hosting two residents per year across 4–5 months, Urban Arts Space will now host one resident per year across a longer time frame, offering a larger stipend with the same expectations. This will allow both the gallery and the selected artist to engage in robust planning for the community programs and projects. Applications for the 2025 Community Artist-in-Residence will open in November on the Urban Arts Space website, with selections made in early 2025.