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The Silver Sun Foundation is a family philanthropy dedicated to providing support for professional creative artists, cultural organizations, educators and social change makers.
PAUL STURTZ & POLINA MALIKIN
Artists-in-Residence ~ Winter 2021
In partnership with Upstate Films, a non-profit, member-supported arts organization presenting the best in world & independent cinema in the Hudson Valley since 1972.
Musician Helen Ballentine & Producer Noah Weinman
Artists-in-Residence ~ Winter 2020
Ballentine has been playing music for most of her life — piano from age five, guitar since high school — but her songwriting didn’t emerge until later. After moving from her home in upstate New York to Los Angeles to study studio art in college, Ballentine was working full-time at a Los Angeles gallery, poised to continue onto the trajectory of visual art she had been on since she was a teenager. Instead, it didn’t feel right, and she quit. Suddenly faced with a peculiar freedom, Ballentine decided, somehow both confidently and tentatively, to seriously pursue music for the first time. While nannying on the side to make ends meet, she wrote “Places/Plans,” her first song for Skullcrusher, a little over a year ago. Despite her extensive background in visual arts, Ballentine suddenly found songwriting to be the best avenue for her artistic visions, an easy way for her to organically discover what it is she was trying to say. ‘Skullcrusher is, by all accounts, an exploration of the ways you become yourself when you aren’t looking – and how that feels once you start paying attention.’
Read more about Helen here
FILMMAKERS SIMON LIU & RACHAEL LAWE
Artists-in-Residence ~ Autumn 2020
In partnership with Vic Brooks, Senior Curator, Time-Based Visual Art at EMPAC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Simon Liu is a film artist whose work centers on building a lyrical catalogue of the rapidly evolving inner and outer landscapes of his place of origin in Hong Kong through alternative documentary forms, abstract diary films, multi-channel video installations and 16mm projection performances. Liu’s work has been presented at film festivals and institutions globally including the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam: Tiger Short Competition, Toronto International Film Festival: Wavelengths, Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New Films at MoMA & Film at Lincoln Center, BFI London Film Festival, M+ Museum, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Cinéma du Réel, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Light Industry, and “Dreamlands: Expanded” with the Whitney Museum of American Art & Microscope Gallery. An upcoming solo-presentation of Liu’s films and performances will take place at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of their ongoing Modern Mondays series. Liu is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a teacher at the Cooper Union School of Art, and a member of Negativeland; an artist-run analogue film lab in Brooklyn. Liu is currently editing his first feature film, Staffordshire Hoard.
Rachael Lawe holds a Bachelor’s & Master’s degree in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, U.K. (2005). After graduation she became Director & Curator of FRED, an art gallery based in London U.K. & Leipzig, Germany. Following a move to New York in 2009, she served as the Founding Director of the International Collage Center, an educational arts nonprofit with a lending and research collection. In 2013 she joined the Decorative Arts and Design team at Tiffany & Co. Between 2016 and 2017 she curated three exhibitions with artist collective Regina Rex. From 2017 she has worked in Interior Design focusing on residential projects, and is an active participant in female focused curatorial groups in New York and continues to independently curate arts programs. Since 2017 she has produced and collaborated on several short films with filmmaker Simon Liu which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. They are now working together on their first feature film.
ALISA ALI, Producer and DJ at WFUV.ORG
Artist-in-Residence ~ Summer 2020
Prior to her DJ shifts on WFUV, Alisa spent years as a host on “The Alternate Side” channel, riding the cutting edge of new music and playing her old faves. Alisa does a lot of her work behind the scenes too, as producer many of the FUV Live sessions and live broadcasts. She also collaborates with NPR Music on various projects, most recently including their Turning the Tables project, where they recast the popular music canon with a closer eye on female artists.
Read more about Alisa and hear her middays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., on WFUV.org or at 90.7 FM
PHOTOGRAPHER SHEDRICK PELT
Artist-in-Residence ~ Summer 2020
Shedrick Pelt is an editorial, live-event and commercial photographer. He specializes in documentary, music, product and portrait photography with a style driven by an urge to be the fly on the wall, capturing an experience without disrupting the nature of the moment. Based in Washington D.C., Shedrick works worldwide while keeping strong ties to the local community in his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, and his adopted home of NYC.
JUNETEENTH PROTEST 2020, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Visit Shed’s Website Here
Spring 2020 Filmmaker Residencies have been developed in partnership with Sean Weiner, Director of Programs, Media Arts Lab and Creative Culture at the Jacob Burns Film Center
FILMMAKER EMILY ANN HOFFMAN
Emily Ann Hoffman is an award winning animator, filmmaker, and artist. Her films have screened at Sundance, SXSW, Slamdance and more. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies with the New York Film Festival Artist Academy, the Sundance Institute, the Jacob Burns Film Center and Mighty Oak animation studio. As a fine artist, her work is represented by Spacey Studios and has been featured on Architectural Digest, Fast Company, and more. She has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work explores female sexuality, body, and vulnerability through a comedic lens.
FILMMAKER MATTHEW PUCCINI
Matthew grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives in Brooklyn. His short film Dirty had its World Premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection of the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Award for Acting. His short film Lavender premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Searchlight Pictures for an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run, and was nominated for Vimeo’s Best Drama of 2019. His previous short film The Mess He Made premiered at SXSW in 2017 and was a finalist for the Iris Prize.
Matthew is a 2018 Sundance Ignite Fellow, a member of the 2017 New York Film Festival Artist Academy, a recipient of the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship and a Creative Culture Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center. He was selected as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 2019 25 New Faces of Independent Film and as one of Indiewire’s 25 LGBTQ Filmmakers On The Rise. He is currently developing his first feature film.
FILMMAKER ADAM MEEKS
Artist-in-Residence ~ Spring 2020
Adam Meeks is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His last short film Union County premiered in competition at the 70th Berlinale, and has continued on to screen at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Maryland Film Festival, and numerous others. His work frequently examines rural and peripheral American communities, and aims to exist within the intersection of documentary and narrative processes. He is a 2019 Jacob Burns Emerging Artist Fellow and a Yaddo Residency recipient. He currently works as a video producer at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER ~ CREATIVE CULTURE FELLOWSHIP 2020
Silver Sun Diverse Voices Fellow Karina Dandashi
The Silver Sun Foundation is proud to support the Jacob Burns Film Center’s Creative Culture Program for emerging filmmakers with the Diverse Voices Fellowship each year. In 2020 we welcomed Karina Dandashi, a Syrian-American Filmmaker.
Read more about Creative Culture Fellows HERE
Noah Souder-Russo ~ Artist Resident Winter 2020
Noah is a native New Yorker, a dj, producer, and educational rapper who collaborates with visual artists, dancers and musicians. He is currently working on a music project with a visual component.
See and hear more at Noah's Website ~ http://www.iamnsr.com/
and at https://soundcloud.com/iamnsr/tracks.
Musician Gary Louris ~ Artist Resident ~ Winter 2020
Gary Louris is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter of alternative country and pop music, and one of the most acclaimed musicians to come out of Minnesota’s teaming rock scene. He was a founding member of the Minneapolis-based band The Jayhawks and is their principal songwriter and vocalist. Gary Louris has built a deeply compelling body of music whose artistry and integrity has won the loyalty of an international audience and the respect of both critics and his peers. Read more about him at https://www.highroadtouring.com/artists/gary-louris/
Silver Sun Diverse Voices Fellow Abbe Akhamie ~ JBFC's Creative Culture Class Fall 2019
The Silver Sun Foundation is proud to support the Jacob Burns Film Center's Creative Culture Program for emerging filmmakers with the Diverse Voices Fellowship each year. In 2019 we welcomed Abbe Akhamie, a Nigerian-American writer/director and producer.
The O+ Festival, Kingston, NY
O+ EMPOWERS COMMUNITIES TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR COLLECTIVE WELLBEING THROUGH THE EXCHANGE OF ART, MUSIC AND WELLNESS. This vital community organization hosts the annual O+ Festival each fall, which implements the exchange of art-making and performances for wellness services among participants: 'the art of medicine for the medicine of art', including healing arts, mural tours and healthcare forums.
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- O Positive Parade, Kingston
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- O Positive Festival Parade
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- Dancers, Artists and more
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- Muralists at O Positive
The Woodstock Film Festival 2019 @ Silver Sun Residence
Silver Sun Foundation is pleased to support the annual Woodstock Film Festival by providing accommodations for participating filmmakers during the annual festival in October. The Woodstock Film Festival premieres exceptional films, and hosts a diverse group of talented emerging and established professionals in the movie industry each year.
