The Janet Langsam Vault Project
The Janet Langsam Vault Project seeks to create an opportunity for visionary artists to experiment, expand their practices, and have their voices heard. ArtsWestchester will provide funding for artists to conceptualize and realize site-responsive installations that also engage with important topics in the community.
Two artists will be selected each year and awarded a grant of $3,500. This project celebrates the extraordinary vision & leadership of Janet Langsam, ArtsWestchester’s CEO Emerita.
Do you have questions about the opportunity? Please email [email protected].
Current Installation
Rana Amirtahmasebi | Continuum: Terra
Opening Reception: May 16 | 5–7 PM
On View: May 16– August 2, 2026
Continuum: Terra is a site-specific installation created for ArtsWestchester’s vault that explores pattern and repetition as central carriers of meaning rather than decoration. Inspired by the artist’s Iranian background, draws on architectural context in which these patterns also function as a spatial and philosophical device—guiding the eye, structuring movement and suggesting infinity through repetition. Using clay and color, the installation constructs an immersive environment within the vault.
Created in a time of severe political tension, conflict, and social overload, the vault installation becomes a refuge: a dreamlike interior of visual immersion that invites a moment of pause. The installation’s pattern known as “the hat,” which display’s prominently in the work, is a mathematical form that can extend infinitely without repeating in the same way. Its endless variation recalls the dense ornamental environments of Middle Eastern palaces, bazaars and religious spaces, evoking the visual abundance that shaped the artist’s childhood in Iran.
At the same time, the work is tied to a more fragile impulse: a fear of losing such spaces to war, bombs and missiles — and with them, the textures of memory they hold. In this sense, the project attempts to build a permanent visual memory from childhood, translating pattern into both refuge and remembrance.
About the Artist
Rana Amirtahmasebi is an artist, architect and urban planner whose multidisciplinary practice converges ceramics, printmaking and cartography. Her work occupies the space between image and object,and between ornament and function. Drawing on pattern, repetition, and spatial composition, she creates pieces that are both tactile and narrative. Rooted in her Iranian background and shaped by her training in architecture and urbanism, her practice reflects an ongoing inquiry into memory, place, and the human experience of space.
Based in New York, Amirtahmasebi has worked internationally in urban planning, cultural strategy, and public space. She holds graduate degrees from MIT in architecture and city planning. As an immigrant, she is especially drawn to the capacity of art and objects to carry cultural experience, preserving memory, identity, and belonging across geographies.
“As vaults traditionally hold objects of high value, this space will be a permanent venue for artists to create, explore, & contribute to meaningful conversations.
It is meant to elevate the intrinsic value of the arts beyond the marketspace.”
– Janet T. Langsam
Join the founding donors & be a part of this exciting project
Your donation to The Janet Langsam Vault Project will support artists whose creative work initiates conversation about environmental change on a local and global scale. For more than 50 years, ArtsWestchester has invested more than $45 million in the cultural life of our county, including providing grants to local artists and cultural organizations. Thank you in advance for considering a donation to the arts!
