KinoSaito Residency: Light & Water

The School of Art and the School of Design are pleased to present the exhibition KinoSaito Residency: Light & Water, a two-person show featuring May Hay Wan Shek, Visiting Instructor, Graduate Communications Design, and Sophia Sobers, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Digital Arts. Shek and Sobers were last summer’s participants in the Pratt/KinoSaito Artist-in-Residence Fellowship Program.

KinoSaito Residency: Light & Water includes artworks by Shek and Sobers demonstrating the breadth of their explorations at KinoSaito and a slideshow offering a glimpse into their studios there. The exhibition will be open from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm on weekdays or by appointment, with an opening reception on Tuesday, January 28, 5:00 – 7:00 pm.

Both Shek and Sobers have interdisciplinary backgrounds and practices. Shek is the founder of Boundless Studio, which works in branding, product design, and design direction. Her independent work incorporates text, drawing, painting, printmaking, and bookmaking. On a typical weekday at Pratt, she works with graduate students, teaching design research in a way that emphasizes human-centered approaches and social justice.

Sobers studied architecture before earning an MFA in digital media. Her work in sculpture involves light, sound, and found objects. At Pratt, she teaches undergraduate students creative applications of coding or how to use electronics and microcontrollers to create interactive artworks. In an interview last year, Sobers shared this about how she works: “Introduce me to a new process or technique, and I’ll spend the next few months immersed in it! I really enjoy the challenges of new material or mediums and being given opportunities to incorporate my creative explorations into tangible, site-inspired projects.”

On view in the School of Design Gallery will be Get in the Fucking Water, Shek’s visual narrative—inspired by personal experience and the environment surrounding KinoSaito—about a woman rebuilding her life and learning how to surf. In this work, realized through printmaking and bookmaking, Shek is thinking about how narrative and storytelling can be healing. Also on view will be Hunters and Gatherers, Sobers’ sculptures using cut glass and other industrial materials such as specialized fabrics and tape. At the residency, she was inspired by the history of the area—and how fragments of its industrial past appear in the present—to incorporate found objects into her sculptures.

We look forward to welcoming you to KinoSaito Residency: Light & Water and discussing the synergies between the works on view. In addition to supporting creative practice and faculty research by cultivating an inspiring and supportive environment for exploration and experimentation, the Pratt/KinoSaito Artist-in-Residence Fellowship Program connects individuals from The School of Art and the School of Design in ways that will inform classroom teaching and further cross-disciplinary collaborations.

For the past two summers, Pratt has awarded one School of Art faculty member and one School of Design faculty member with simultaneous four-week residencies at KinoSaito in Verplanck, New York, an hour and a half North of Pratt’s Brooklyn campus on the Hudson River. Before Shek and Sobers, in 2023, the inaugural program participants were Anton Ginzburg, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Graduate Communications Design, and John Monti, Professor, Fine Arts. Applications are due February 3, 2025, for this coming summer

This event is open to the public.