KinoSaito Open Studios Weekend: Kia LaBeija & Taina Larot, Ema Ri

July 16 & 17. |. 1 – 5 PM. |. This event is free and open to the public

Our resident artists Kia LaBeija & Taina Larot and Ema Ri are opening their studios to the public for KinoSaito’s July open studios weekend. Come meet the artists, see their work in progress, and enjoy light refreshments.

At 1 & 3PM Wendell Gray II will also be performing an original contemporary dance piece, along with a group of other performers.

KinoSaito Residency Program is a studio + residency program designed to provide artists with the space and time necessary to focus concentrated attention on any part of their practice they feel is ripe for development. The program hosts two artists at a time for six-week sessions during the months of March through November, ensuring that practicing artists, their ideas and their energy will be a constant presence at KinoSaito. Each artist is given a generously proportioned 900 sf studio with large windows and high ceilings, a loft living quarters, a kitchenette, and a private bathroom. Regular open studio events invite visitors to talk with artists and see works-in-progress.

KIA (b.1990) is an image maker and storyteller born and raised in the heart of New York City, Hell’s Kitchen. Her multidisciplinary practice includes photography, performance, collage, design, writing and film. She composes cinematic and theatrical autobiographical works by staging, re-imagining, sometimes documenting in real time, or all of the above. Her self-portraits embody memory and dream-like imagery to narrate complex stories at the intersections of womanhood, sexuality, belonging, and navigating the world as a woman living with HIV. She’s presented work at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of The City of New York, The Bronx Museum of the Arts,  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The International Center for Photography and the Performa ’19 Biennial. Highlighted commissions and collaborations include W Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Apple, DAZED, OUT Magazine, Vice, and Triple Canopy. In 2022 she presented her first solo museum show prepare my heart at Fotografiska New York. Her highly regarded exhibition of original photographs, ephemera, objects and family images chronicles love, loss, and growing up HIV-positive in New York City. Heavily involved in New York’s Iconic House and Ballroom scene for a decade, Kia was a member of the Royal House of LaBeija where she served as the Overall Mother from 2017 to 2019. She played the title role of Dove in Band Pillar Point’s viral music video, and appeared as a Principal Dancer in the pilot episode of Ryan Murphy’s Ballroom Drama POSE. She is a 2019 Creative Capital Awardee alongside her partner Taína Larot. Kia is a graduate of the New School University.

Taina Larot is a multi-hyphenated creative, whose approach to visual art, movement, directing and facilitation surpasses the boundaries of what it means to be an artist. She uses personal style, design and her color dying technique “dips” as a means to communicate that she is a reflection of the world, and that the world is not black and white. Her intentionality in participating in the grey areas and practicing fluidity is a reminder that boxes can both separate and unite. With movement being her first language, it is the medium that provides her with the unique power and skill to bring people from all walks of life together. She is a profound delegator, a meticulous mind and an open heart.

Ema Ri is a queer identified, Cuban-American, Miami-based artist. They earned their Bachelor in Fine Art at New World School of the Arts (2017) and were a finalist for the CINTAS Fellowship the following year. Their work has been exhibited in the following group shows: Cifo Gallery – Unbound (2017), Mindy Solomon Gallery – Make It Nice Again (2017), The Fountainhead – Everyday is Summer (2018), Spinello Projects – FREE! (2018), Dimensions Variable – Ouroboros (2020), and Spinello Projects – TIME-SENSITIVE (2020), Locust Project – A landscape longed for: the garden as disturbance, (2021) and had their first debut at Spinello Projects – Undercurrent (2021), Ri was awarded a Wavemaker Grant for research and development (2021), and is currently an artist in resident at Oolite Arts (2022-23).