Meet the YoungArts Fall Gallery Residency Artists 

Nina Osoria Ahmadi is an artist and educator from Miami, FL of AfroCuban and Iranian parents. Ahmadi’s work explores the visibility, performance and dis/appearance of trans and racialized bodies through photography, video, poetry and performance. Inspired by their experience studying dance in their youth, they have a deep interest in the body and the performance of the everyday.

Ahmadi’s recent works center the physical experiences of gender nonconformity and diasporic identity, asking: “How can I escape my body when it is persistently othered; how do I perform in order to survive, and how can I escape this performance; how can my body reclaim its place within the earth, rather than be subjugated by man?” Through movement, as well as motifs of being engulfed by the earth, Ahmadi draws parallels between human and natural bodies, exploring the tensions of transition and change. Their photographic practice captures the layered existence of Miami’s queer Black and brown communities, through nightlife photography and intimate portraiture, creating artifacts of this rich family– one that is constantly at odds with the state and constantly inventing new modes of survival as a result. 

Priscilla Aleman is a visual artist based in Miami, FL. With her background in archaeology, she uses sculpture to retrace ideas around the afterlife, Pre-Columbian cosmology and the interplay of cultures from the Global South. Her work has been exhibited across the country and internationally at: The Smithsonian Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum, New York Botanical Garden, Readytex Art, Art and Culture Center Hollywood, The Kampong, The Explorer’s Club and Virginia CommonWealth University. Her most recent solo exhibition, In a Field of Ancient Stars, was presented at the Baxter Street Camera Club in 2023. In 2022 she presented their first public artwork in New York City commissioned by New York Botanical Garden in the group exhibition Around the Table.   

Aleman’s work has been reviewed in numerous publications including The New York Times: T Magazine, Hyperallergic, Artforum, Columbia Magazine, and Musee Magazine. Aleman is the recipient of the Mellon Research Fellowship at NYBG, The Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant and NYFA City Artist Corp Grant. She has been awarded residencies at Mass Moca, Fountainhead Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council,  StoneLeaf and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York. Aleman earned a bachelor’s degree with honors from Cooper Union and a Master’s in Fine Arts in Visual Art from Columbia University. 

Dani Ferreira Amaro is a transdisciplinary sound artist with a focus in music composition, production and vocal performance. They hold a background in music education and performance spanning over nine years. Amaro utilizes musical improvisation in interdisciplinary works as a vehicle for learning and communication. Rooted in a foundation of contemporary jazz technique and Brazilian-Cuban heritage, they infuse storytelling and folklore into their practice, oftentimes weaving between repertoire in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Amaro aims to highlight intergenerational healing within their communities, fostering collective catharsis. They have performed original works at The Highline in New York, WDNA Radio, and local establishments in Miami, FL such as the Pérez Art Museum Miami, The Colony Theater, University of Miami, Faena Forum and IIIPOINTS Arts and Technology Festival.  

Stream Amaro’s music on SoundCloud.

Alberto Checa utilizes world-building and its potential for unbridled creation, resulting in scenarios that reveal the exploitative workload of the Brown body through obsession and iterations, emphasizing the meaninglessness labor endured by the lower class. By incorporating utilitarian PVC structures that complicate the birthing of a final product while fulfilling a function, Checa begins to highlight the futile loop that exists in between the hidden process and the end result.

Born in Cuba, Checa draws from his people’s object improvisations and creates DIY systems with PVC pipes, plaster, silicone molds, water vacuums, curated sounds and submersible pumps as materials. Checa’s intent to engage with these materials is influenced by the book titled Con Nuestros Propios Esfuerzos (With Our Own Efforts), where the Cuban government itemized the way household objects could be repurposed to meet the needs of survival of the Cuban people after the fall of the Soviet Union during a time period called “El Periodo Especial en Tiempo de Paz” (Special Period in Times of Peace). Recontextualization of objects allows new methods to engage with “them,” initiating a set of nonsensical and unreasonable challenges that advance with each iteration of Checa’s performances.