Image courtesy of David Court & Louise Barry.

As Part of the SHIFT residency, the artists in this show all share a double life, balancing their practice as artists, with their commitment to being arts workers.

Over the past five months, this motley group has been meeting regularly in homes and studios, over home cooked food and drink, to identify the issues that surround their work and their practice. The result? A camaraderie. As they would talk until the wee hours, giddy revelations burst forward. And many lists were made (the above “poem” is an excerpt from a shared document brainstorming the show’s title).

When the group had the final meeting to share the projects they plan to include in the show, they discovered a remarkable thing: as if a mirror of the essential thing that connects them all, each artist was working on two distinct trajectories that exist in conversation with each other.

SHIFT residency, formerly the Residency for Arts-Workers as Artists, was launched in August 2010 to provide an unprecedented opportunity: studio space and peer support for practicing artists who also work as arts professionals (administrators, curators, directors, and others). This program honors these individuals with a unique environment to build on their own art practices. Seven residents are selected from nominations based on their outstanding contributions to the art community plus their potential for artistic growth in a shared interactive environment.

For press inquiries, please contact Lauren Bierly, EFA Project Space Assistant Director at lauren@efanyc.org or 212-563-5855 x 234.