CRITICAL WRITING FELLOWSHIP
Announcing the 2024 Momus Critical Writing Fellowship mentees!
The 2024 Fellow is Lydia Y. Nichols. Over the course of eight months, Nichols will work closely with this year’s mentor, Jessica Lynne, to explore the “big picture” elements of a research topic, as well as the challenges, nuances, and intimacies of the writing process itself.
Shortlisted Fellows are Zach Ngin and Sanja Grozdanic. Both will be commissioned to write a long form feature for publication with Momus, with the guidance of the editorial team.
The third iteration of the Critical Writing Fellowship is generously supported by Critical Minded.
Clockwise from top: Lydia Y. Nichols; Sanja Grozdanic, photo: Matthieu Croizier; Zach Ngin.
This paid opportunity provides sustained mentorship, editorial support, and network-building to an early-career art writer or critic. Over an 8-month period (April to December 2024) of research, dialogue, and drafting, the Fellow will produce a feature-length text to be published in Momus. Two Shortlisted Fellows are also commissioned to produce texts for publication in Momus.
This year, mentorship is overseen by writer and critic Jessica Lynne, who says:
As this year’s Critical Writing Fellowship mentor, I am excited to dream alongside, champion, and closely support writers whose perspectives are not readily present in art writing. Writers are encouraged to be ambitious in their proposals as there are no thematic priorities. I see this fellowship as a time for daring writing informed by clear, guiding frameworks; but this does not mean that writers are expected to have all of the answers at the time of proposal submission. This fellowship is designed to make room for the pleasure of questions and surprising investigations.
CRITICAL WRITING FELLOW 2024
Lydia Y. Nichols is a writer and polemicist from New Orleans. Her work considers themes of ecology, memory, and aesthetics and has been published in 64 Parishes Magazine, Bayou Brief, Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, The Grio, The Lens NOLA, and Pelican Bomb, amongst other publications. She has been awarded grants, fellowships, and residencies from A Studio in the Woods, the National Performance Network, Independent Curators International, the Jazz and Heritage Foundation, and the Platforms Fund. Lydia is a mother, praline maker, and hobby sewist.
SHORTLISTED FELLOWS
Zach Ngin is an art worker from San Francisco. They are currently the curatorial assistant at the MIT List Visual Arts Center and an art editor at n+1. They have previously held positions at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the MIT Press, and Brown University. They have contributed to exhibitions and projects with Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Carrie Mae Weems, Red Canary Song, Steina, and Trinh T. Minh-ha, among others. As an independent art writer, their most recent piece is about the Asian American artist network Godzilla and the ambiguous lessons of the 1990s. Zach lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Sanja Grozdanic is a writer living in Berlin. Her criticism and short fiction have appeared in publications including The White Review, The Griffith Review, and Decolonial Hacker, among others. Since 2021, she has been developing and performing Permanent Trespass (Beirut of the Balkans and the American Century) with Bassem Saad. Broadly, she is interested in slippages between public and private grief, anxiety, and imagination.
PAST CRITICAL WRITING FELLOWS 2021-23
The 2023 Fellowship was delivered in partnership with Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, with mentorship overseen by Rahel Aima and editorial support from Jessica Lynne.
CRITICAL WRITING FELLOW 2023
Kira Xonorika is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and writer. Her work explores the connections between futurism, AI collaboration, trans and queer temporalities, dynamics between the Global North and South, indigenous sovereignty, internet aesthetics, and Web3. They edited an issue of the GenderIT journal titled “Trans Perspectives on Technology & Politics from Latin America.” Their writing has been published by e-flux, Cambridge University, and Tonantzin. They have recently given lectures at King’s College London, the University of Eau Claire, and the University of Buenos Aires.
SHORTLISTED FELLOWS
Doreen A. Rios is an independent curator and researcher based in Mexico City. Her work focuses on digital art, post-digital practices, and new materialities. Ríos is founder and director of [ANTI]MATERIA, an online platform dedicated to the research and exhibition of art produced through digital media. From 2019 to 2021 she was chief curator at Centro de Cultura Digital Mexico City and is currently part of the international selectors committee for the Lumen Art Prize. She VJs at Minipixel, conducts experimental research at Unidad de Conciencias Colectivas Terrestres, and teaches at CENTRO and Universidad Anáhuac. Ríos holds a MA in Contemporary Curating with a specialization in digital cultures from Winchester School of Arts and a degree in Architecture from Tecnológico de Monterrey. Read Doreen A. Rios’s published fellowship text here.
Cassie Packard is a Brooklyn-based art writer interested in the intersection of visual culture and queerness, networks, and worlding. She has bylines at publications including Art in America, Artforum, ArtReview, BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, Financial Times, frieze, Hyperallergic, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New Inquiry, among others. She has contributed several catalogue essays and exhibition texts, and her first book is forthcoming from Frances Lincoln. A member of the International Association of Art Critics, Packard was a 2022 Recess Critical Writing Fellow and a 2019 Fellow in the Art & Law Program. She was previously a researcher at Hauser & Wirth and holds a MA in Art History from University College London and a BA in Art History from Brown University. Read Cassie Packard’s published fellowship text here.
Cassie Packard, Kira Xonorika, and Doreen A. Rios.
CRITICAL WRITING FELLOW 2021-22
The 2021-22 Fellowship was delivered in partnership with Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, with mentorship overseen by Nora N. Khan and editorial support from Rahel Aima and Jessica Lynne.
Arushi Vats is a New Delhi-based arts, literary, and culture writer. From a highly competitive applicant pool, Vats astounded us with the clarity of her vision, the strength of her early publishing experience (including platforms such as MARCH: a journal of art & strategy, Alternative South Asia Photography, The Karachi Collective, and Critical Collective), and the depth of her resonance with Nora N. Khan’s practice. Further, Vats’s ambition to write on art “as a site for both lyrical affinities and radical challenges” aligned meaningfully with the goals of the Fractal Fellowship at Eyebeam.
In addition to publishing in cultural venues including LSE International History and Write | Art | Connect, Vats has published short stories and poetry in The Gulmohar Quarterly, Hakara Journal, and PIX Quarterly. She has also authored several curatorial essays, including for a volume titled The Constitution of India at 70: Celebrate, Illuminate, Rejuvenate, Defend, published by Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust in 2021. Vats was featured on Momus: The Podcast (Season 5, Episode 6) reading from and discussing Exit the Rehearsal: A Body in Delhi, published by Runway Journal. Read Arushi Vat’s published fellowship text here.
SHORTLISTED FELLOWS
Simon Wu is a writer and curator based in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. His writing has appeared in publications including Art in America, BOMB, The Drift, frieze, and Momus. He is an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program and a curator with the Racial Imaginary Institute. He is a 2021 grantee of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Read Simon Wu’s published fellowship text here.
Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung is a writer based in Berlin, and founding editor of institutional critique platform Decolonial Hacker. He studied art history, gender studies and law at the University of Sydney, and is currently the curatorial assistant at the Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin. In 2021, he was awarded the International Award for Art Criticism.
Arushi Vats, 2021; Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung (image credit: Agustín Farias); Simon Wu (image credit: Thomas Blair).