Grantee Database

Paola SINISTERRA

• 2026
• Crafts
• Hong Kong to India

To research mud-resist dyeing traditions and its industrial applications, and to refine expertise in natural dye techniques and sustainable textile processes. Sinisterra will visit and document traditional craft communities in India, focusing on mud dyeing techniques on textiles. Through participatory research, interviews, hands-on learning, and teaching, she seeks to understand local knowledge systems rooted in mud dyeing techniques for textiles. Sinisterra hopes that the fellowship will support the preservation of these textile practices and advance her goal of building an inter-Asian network of artisans and practitioners that facilitates knowledge-sharing and will explore applications of these crafts beyond consumer products.

Yuske TANINAKA

• 2026
• Visual Art
• Japan to Hong Kong

To study how traditional Chinese medicine is practiced as treatment in everyday life in Hong Kong, focusing on how the body and its conditions are articulated in clinical language and how these practices coexist with contemporary medicine. Building on his research in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, Taninaka will immerse himself in local clinical settings to strengthen the foundation of his ongoing project Time to Heal. Through lectures on pulse diagnosis and acupuncture, as well as weekly sessions with practitioners, he will learn case reasoning and maintain field notes attentive to language, touch, bodily technique, and temporality, informing his sculptural and choreographic practice. He aims to develop deeply embodied research methods and cultural understanding, enhancing future works while offering the public a perspective on East Asia through bodily technique and healing.

Otniel TASMAN

• 2026
• Dance
• Indonesia to United States

To deepen his artistic and intellectual understanding through direct encounters with various practices, performances, and archives related to the body, gender, and spirituality. Tasman will explore the historicity of the body and aesthetic difference through archival research, interviews, and performance observations, focusing on the Lengger traditional dance and queer performance. Through these experiences, Tasman aims to expand his understanding of how the body carries both history and possibility and how performance can act as a site of transformation for spirituality, queerness, and aesthetics. The fellowship will provide contemplative space and critical distance necessary for Tasman to reflect on his ongoing research and to reframe his practice within a broader cross-cultural and philosophical context.

LIU Tian

• 2026
• Curation
• China to United States

To research curatorial education practices as a form of social imagination and cultural mediation to rethink and reform current contemporary art curricula. Through site visits, archival study, and structured conversations with curators, educators, program directors, and artist-organizers, Liu will examine diverse approaches to curatorial education. He hopes to gain a better understanding of how curatorial studies programs in the U.S. structure their curricula, select faculty, and articulate their methodological frameworks. He also aims to expand his understanding of New York’s broader art ecology and thereby grasp the contexts in which curatorial and educational work take place. Liu hopes the fellowship will yield opportunities for future academic collaborations and continued cultural dialogue with counterparts in the U.S. after returning to China.

• 2026
• Curation
• China to United States

To research curatorial education practices as a form of social imagination and cultural mediation to rethink and reform current contemporary art curricula. Through site visits, archival study, and structured conversations with curators, educators, program directors, and artist-organizers, Liu will examine diverse approaches to curatorial education. He hopes to gain a better understanding of how curatorial studies programs in the U.S. structure their curricula, select faculty, and articulate their methodological frameworks. He also aims to expand his understanding of New York’s broader art ecology and thereby grasp the contexts in which curatorial and educational work take place. Liu hopes the fellowship will yield opportunities for future academic collaborations and continued cultural dialogue with counterparts in the U.S. after returning to China.

Sara TSE & Shirley TSE

• 2026
• Visual Art
• Hong Kong to Malaysia

To engage with second- and third-generation members of the Hakka diaspora in Malaysia. Sara and Shirley Tse will learn Hakka histories through personal storytelling by residents in Perak Malaysia, where the Hakka Chinese community is concentrated, and retell these narratives in contemporary art forms. They plan to visit locations related to artifacts and stories passed down by their late mother, as starting points for their experience. This immersion will deepen their research with lived experience and expand diasporic histories.

Oliver WANG

• 2026
• Arts Criticism
• United States to Japan

To explore how American car culture has shaped Japanese aesthetics of design, craft, and self-expression, tracing trans-Pacific exchanges that connect material culture, visual style, and everyday forms of creativity. Wang will conduct fieldwork and interviews with car customizers and event organizers and participants influenced by American automotive culture. He will also visit lowrider hangouts with close connections to counterparts in Southern California, tracing how a visual language of creativity inspired by L.A.’s Chicano community becomes articulated through Japanese cultural contexts. Wang hopes to interpret these practices not only as social phenomena but as acts of aesthetic invention that reveal trans-Pacific artistic exchange and, in parallel, challenge narrow definitions of artistic practice, showing how creativity flourishes beyond galleries and museums – in garages, on city streets, and within grassroots communities.

Qudrat WASEFI

• 2026
• Music
• Afghanistan to United States

To commence a Master of Arts in Composition, Performance, and Research at Tufts University. Through his graduate studies, Wasefi aims to deepen his artistic practice and further his hopes to preserve Afghanistan’s musical heritage and build bridges with the international community. Wasefi, a composer and trumpeter, graduated from the Longy School of Music of Bard College in 2025 and received the President’s Award for Social Change from Bard College. He is also the founder of the Afghanistan Freeharmonic Orchestra, which promotes Afghan musical heritage and fosters collaboration and solidarity among musicians from Afghanistan and around the world.

Christie Hei Yuen WONG

• 2026
• Art History
• Hong Kong to China

To investigate the influence of socialist realism on photographic practices and image-making in twentieth-century China. Over the course of her four-month trip to Mainland China, Wong hopes to find primary source materials on Maoist-era Chinese photography that can enrich her research on the affective impact of propaganda photographs and related objects. Meeting with local scholars and curators knowledgeable about Mao-era photography and visual culture will provide expertise for her research. Dialogues with contemporary artists and other practitioners in photography and image-based work will help determine connections between her historical research and contemporary art. Wong aims to bring greater global exposure to this genre of Chinese visual culture in Hong Kong and beyond.

Cheng-Han Wu

• 2026
• Theater
• Taiwan to Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand

To research new play development systems and build connections with theatres in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Through interviews, institutional visits, and onsite observations across the three countries, Wu will examine how storytelling practices differ between East and West, and across Asian cultures; what dramaturgical structures define Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines; and how Taiwanese dramaturgy fits within Asia’s wider narrative landscape. Wu will meet playwrights, dramaturgs, directors, and programmers of theater festivals over the course of his fellowship. He hopes the experience will open pathways for future cross-cultural collaborations and creative ventures and directly inform his dramaturgical practice.

Tansy XIAO

• 2026
• Ethnomusicology
• United States to Taiwan

To research and explore possibilities for graphically notating Pasibutbut, a polyphonic singing tradition of Taiwan’s indigenous Bunun community. Through her fellowship, Xiao hopes to immerse herself in a village in the mountainous areas of Nantou and Hualian where there remains a vibrant practice of Pasibutbut, in which Bunun men sing in a slow, rotating movement, their voices rising and merging as they adjust pitch and breath to one another. In addition to listening, observing, and experiencing the practice herself, Xiao aims to collaborate with the Bunun people to document their practice through graphic notation, in a way that centers their voices and agency in presenting their musical tradition.

QIU Yang

• 2026
• Film/Video
• China to Japan

To research and collect stories of mixed-culture families and communities in Okinawa and explore how the human condition is tested in subtle, intimate spaces between families. Qiu will explore how the lives of Okinawa’s residents, especially those of Chinese descent, are challenged under the shadow of the region’s complex history and geopolitics. He will also investigate how memory, culture, and tradition transform across generations Qiu will follow stories across Okinawa, including neighborhoods near U.S. military bases, areas where centuries of exchange with Fujianese communities remain visible, and sites that speak to earlier Chinese presence and regional movement. Archival research and meeting scholars and community groups will further inform his understanding.

Sherwin YANG

• 2026
• Music
• Taiwan to Japan

To study Japanese traditional music in Tokyo, focusing on Noh and supplemented by Kabuki Nagauta. The main focus of Yang’s three-month fellowship to Japan is Noh. He will study individually with Noh masters and integrate himself in groups studying traditional music, such as amateur ensembles like Tesarugaku no Kai and university Noh clubs. Yang will also explore techniques to innovate Noh in other languages with the aim of creating Mandarin-scripted Noh. Through immersive engagement with local communities and intensive fieldwork, Yang aims to build networks within the Japanese music scene and lay the foundation for future cross-cultural music production collaborations and academic research.