WAABEL's 2024 Annual Exhibition
Artist Residents showcase an original piece that honors a year of learning in community and embodies the complicated and meaningful role of artistic practice at monumental phases of life.
Michelle Sider
A World Shattered and Rearranged
Participating in the WAABEL artist residency was a transformative chapter in my artistic journey. Immersed in this creative and collaborative environment, I found the space and freedom to deeply explore and challenge my artistic practice. Initially, my work was rooted in familiar techniques and concepts. However, through engaging with other artists, exchanging ideas, and absorbing feedback, my perspective shifted. The residency encouraged experimentation and risk-taking, leading to an evolution in both the form and narrative of my artwork. This piece, “Cracked Open” evolved from these conversations. Beginning with the theme of searching for light in the midst of darkness, this painting evolved into a layered and intricate composition that embodied the themes of being broken and healing. This piece marks the beginning of a new series of work called “A World Shattered and Rearranged”. I look forward to continuing this series. As the residency comes to a close, I feel energized and committed to continuing the pursuit of my defined goals. I am profoundly grateful for the WAABEL community, which has become an integral and cherished part of my journey.
Looking at Michelle Sider’s A World Shattered and Rearranged, I’m reminded of the feminist tradition of reimagining systems—personal, societal, and artistic. It’s about acknowledging brokenness while also celebrating the potential for reassembly in ways that honor difference, resilience, and creativity, which Sider does so beautifully. I'm reminded of artists like Cornelia Parker, with works like Cold Dark Matter, deconstruct and reassemble materials to explore destruction and renewal. Parker’s fragmented shed symbolizes both the violence of destruction and the hope for healing, much like Sider’s Cracked Open, where brokenness and healing come together to create a narrative of transformation. Similarly, Wangechi Mutu’s collages, full of fragmented figures, speak to identity, trauma, and healing, just as Sider’s layered compositions tackle themes of breaking, rebuilding, and becoming. Sider’s personal approach, shattering her own work, is moving - as Cracked Open begins Sider’s new series, I’m excited to see how this path unfolds and builds on such powerful inspirations.
Sally Brown
It's in the details that Michelles’ work got me. The close up images are monumental, as monumental as the event of being broken open. Often no one sees or knows it, only the broken themselves. By giving us a look into her broken open moment Michelle reminds us to see our broken moments as transformative.
Sofia Lulgjuraj
Michelle’s act of destroying an old work is a bold action toward redefining her art. I also see how current world events play a role in her moment and I hope this reshaping is a positive change for everyone.
Steve Deeb
A moment is marked in pieces, broken and scattered, and finding your way in the spaces between...
Sofia Lulgjuraj
Untitled
The residency was not just a journey to create a final piece; it was an exploration of how I arrive at this moment, at this understanding of my work and myself. At its core, the process revolved around Abby’s consistent, thoughtful, and challenging insight. It was her way of questioning, listening, and encouraging that allowed me to explore without fear. Working closely in pairs added another layer: conversations that felt open and collaborative, discussing ideas and possibilities in ways that made the work feel real. With the group, the exposure to different perspectives and thoughtful inquiry helped me build confidence. What truly shaped me was the responsibility to this community—being seen by others, offering support, and receiving feedback in return. The residency helped me get to a place of understanding that my work isn’t about the finished object but the movement—the oscillation back and forth through time and within the making itself. This movement is who I am. It is how I function. The residency gave me confidence: confidence in seeing my work as it truly is, confidence in embracing the way I move through my practice, and confidence in the relationships that helped guide me here. This moment, this understanding, is the final piece.
The video of the young Sofia running up a driveway as her "time machine" taps into themes of time, memory, and personal history—ideas that are central to feminist art. It reminds me of Martha Rosler, whose video work challenges traditional ideas of time and space, often through domestic settings. Also, Sophie Calle comes to mind, especially with pieces like Take Care of Yourself, where she blends personal and public moments to explore identity and memory. Lorna Simpson also plays with time and identity, especially around how history intersects with personal experience. Sophia’s video feels like a personal reflection on time, in the same way these artists use everyday moments to reshape narratives and understandings of the self. I love the sense of nostalgia that holds close but also seems to leap from.
Sally Brown
I like the thought of visiting the past and using it to project a future path similarly, seeing this moment over and over again changes it and therefore guides Sofia's creative process. The coveting of a moment can ground us and help guide our future acts.
Steve Deeb
Sofia’s video loop is a brilliant means of mimicking her creative process. It invites us to see and experience how she approaches her work. I enjoy this engagement with the audience and feel it is a powerful means of sharing her process.
Michelle Sider
A moment is in something familiar, truly seen for the first time...
Sally Brown
Threads: A Collaborative Self-Portrait
The WAABEL residency was the true catalyst for this series. Early on, through enriching conversations with Abby and the resident group, I was encouraged to revisit a canvas that had sat untouched for years. This dialogue inspired me to document my journey of engaging with the blank canvas, and I began blogging about the process. The blog received an outpouring of warmth and encouragement from fellow artists, which sparked the idea to invite their contributions. Their participation transformed the project and shaped the vision for the final piece. It was only through the collaborative conversations with Abby and the incredible residents that I could fully explore and bring this work to life.
By transforming a deeply personal expression of change into a communal project, Sally invites me to reflect on reactions and anxieties about transitions in my own life. The body prints expose changes over time and compel me to think about perceptions of my own body and evolving role as a woman, mother and now grandmother. The communal aspect of this piece reminds me that adjusting to change is a universal experience that unites us all.
Michelle Sider
Sally’s work was a call to women. She is calling out to us still. to be vocal to be present to take up space calling out to society to have it allow space for us, all women, so we know we are valued and we belong
Sofia Lulgjuraj
I am also dealing with the letting go of my oldest child. It is hard for me to process the ending as anything other than loss/rejection but I want to have a healthier understanding of this natural process. Through Sally’s art I feel the impact of the dance of parenthood and its connection to the physical body.
Steve Deeb
A moment is a brave acknowledgment of the unknown...
Ileana Collazo
The Sanctuary Series
Ilean's digital artwork is stunning—it feels like a celebration of selfhood, culture, and beauty in moments of rest. The modern, digital medium adds depth, creating a fresh perspective on timeless themes. The surreal colors and mystical elements in what might seem like an ordinary beach scene remind me of Poulomi Basu’s work, which often blends magical realism with speculative fiction to explore women's issues. On the towel, I see abstracted queen and king figures with flowers around, bringing a sense of the fantastical into the every day, much like Basu's ability to weave symbolic narratives into her art. It’s a powerful combination of leisure, identity, and deeper symbolism.
Sally Brown
Ileana’s work is like diving into a pool. In this magical pool I imagine myself submerged and surrounded by all these images that shift and change as you focus on one and then the next. The deeper you dive the more is revealed. There is no end. It’s a world that is all Ileana’s and becomes yours too until you have to come up for air.
Sofia Lulgjuraj
Ileana’s art comes alive in a stunning line of functional art objects that blend fantasy with everyday luxury. The richly colored and layered imagery printed on this beach towel, transforms an ordinary product into a portal to her imaginative world. Much like wearable art, her pieces allow you to carry her creations with you, immersing yourself in their vibrant essence wherever you go. The tactile experience of wrapping yourself in a beach towel adorned with her art deepens your connection to the imagery, infusing your daily life with the same sense of indulgence and wonder her artwork evokes. Ileana’s collection seamlessly merges beauty, function, and emotional resonance.
Michelle Sider
A moment is the strength of knowing your worth...
Steve Deeb
the thin dark line
Working with Waabel over the past year has helped me regain my confidence sharing my Art with others and that has given me permission to make “the thin dark line”. I am now more open to sharing my Art with the world and through this process, I found the right words to have a meaningful conversation with my audience.
Steve's artwork is profoundly moving, and resonates deeply with the work of artist Yayoi Kusama. Kusama's art is often rooted in personal experience and uses repetition, fragmentation, and immersive design to convey complex inner worlds. Similarly, the 27 panels, each representing a year of life, offer a serialized narrative that transforms individual experiences with dyslexia into a compelling visual story. The dark acrylic drip that connects your panels feels like a unifying thread, much like Kusama's iconic infinity nets or polka dots, which she uses to bind fragmented spaces and experiences. This element speaks to the interconnectedness of each year of life while emphasizing the flow of time and personal growth. It’s a poignant reminder that while dyslexia shapes experience, it also offers a lens through which unique beauty and perspective can emerge. His celebration of dyslexia through this artwork mirrors Kusama’s embrace of her mental health challenges as sources of creative power. By turning what society might see as a limitation into a strength, he invites viewers to reconsider their perceptions of difference and find inspiration in resilience and innovation. His work, like Kusama's, is a testament to how art can transform personal narrative into a universal statement, inviting us all to celebrate the richness of diverse experiences.
Sally Brown
Steve’s work is a diary not a timeline. Memories are not linear. They are messy, they talk to and influence each other, bleed into one another. Is he trying to order the disorder? Yet it still gets messy, gets away from him. Can’t control it even in paint, on canvas? I come away also asking how do I try to control it all?
Sofia Lulgjuraj
Steve’s ambitious effort to condense 27 years of experiences into a single work of art is as bold as it is thought-provoking. The piece feels deeply connected to the way a dyslexic mind processes information—holistically, intuitively, and creatively. The separated yet interconnected canvases give us a window into his unique way of thinking, with each "bubble" of color standing as its own moment while being gently tied together by the thin blue line. This less linear approach captures the essence of how dyslexic brains often rely on the right hemisphere for creative and big-picture thinking. Steve’s work also opens the door to a fascinating intersection between art and neuroscience. The connection between dyslexia, creativity, and the brain is still being explored, and his piece feels like a contribution to that ongoing dialogue. By turning his experiences into something visual and tangible, Steve not only shares his story but also invites us to consider the deeper relationship between how we think and how we create.
Michelle Sider
A moment is assembling the blueprint for the future self you wish to be.
The culmination of the WAABEL Artist Residency is the annual exhibition, Journey to Self. Our 2024 theme, "Marking Your Moment," tasked artists with identifying "their moment" as an avenue of bold declaration of their current phase of life and creating an original piece to embody this moment. These pieces then came together in a collaborative curation that opened up space for artists to bear witness to one another's journey.
The WAABEL Artist Residency is a year-long guided program to strategically advance in community. WAABEL engages artists in a self-directed, deeply reflective experience to explore deeper elements of their creative practice and design pathways to success - however they define it. Our Residency has been deligently working toward artist advancement since 2021.