2025 Residents

Maisa Imamović is a writer, web designer/developer, and educator interested in building hybrid publishing formats and collectively built interfaces. In her research, she critically studies the role of a single user and user behaviors generated by code. Maisa has written code in collaboration with artists and collectives including Hackers&Designers, Ali Eslami, Marlies van Hak, VEIN Agency, and was published in Kajet, Simulacrum, Forum, TAAK, Real Review, NXS World, Metropolis M. She is a part of two self-organized collectives: RIP SPACE in Los Angeles and time.is.capital in Amsterdam. Her first book was published by the Institute of Network Cultures in 2022. She is an adjunct professor at USC Media Arts + Practice, UCLA Design Media, ArtCenter Interaction Design, and CalArts Integrated Media. She is currently writing her forthcoming book with Set Margins and is supported by Mondriaan Fonds. 

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Luna Izpisua Rodriguez (b.1994) is a Romani-Spanish-American artist whose practice spans performance, sculpture, video, and text. She holds an MFA in Art and Theater Directing (Cal Arts), an ME in Industrial Engineering (UC Berkeley), and a BS in Chemistry (UC Berkeley). Her work has been awarded by the Princess Grace Foundation, the CalArts Interdisciplinary Grant, and the Fung Fellowship.

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Alex Sherman is an artist and curator. Driven by investigation and gesture, Alex’s work hinges on the concept of time. She also studies failure, precarity, and absurdity. Alex has exhibited at warehouses, rooftops, classrooms, parks, living rooms, studios, local theaters, and the San Sebastián Film Festival

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Rowland Smith III (They/Them) is an award-winning immersive storyteller based in Los Angeles, California. Having earned both a B.F.A. in Acting and a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2022, they then went on to earn an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts in 2024. Hybridizing prose and narrative screenplay, Rowland’s writing weaves together elements of Korean folklore and western dramatic literature to capture dreams melting into reality. Their work may be found online, at trans.monster, and fiftywordstories.com, or in physical collections such as De/Cathect, UMBC Bartleby 2021-2022, or Strip Mall Magazine Fall 2024, among others.

Outside of writing, Rowland may be found running a tabletop adventure, at your nearest AMC theater, or as a runner on your next film shoot.

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Emiko Wilks (b. New Mexico) is a video artist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her work – highly influenced by her Jewish Japanese identity – explores questions of family history, race, and sexuality. She graduated from CalArts with an MFA in Photography and Media in 2024.

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Xiao Zhang is a moving image artist whose works center on personal poetics derived from cross-generational memory, body politics, and mythological materials. Through a variety of forms including experimental film, video installation, photography, and mixed media, her works explore how images are connected through time and presented in space, addressing fundamentally sculptural concerns. Zhang employs techniques using celluloid film,  projection optic, photographic chemicals, and motorized machinery to manipulate, modify, and reinterpret the tools of cinema—image, sound, and space.

Zhang is from China and currently resides in Los Angeles. She received her MFA in Film and Video at California Institute of the Arts and BFA at Beijing Film Academy. Her works have been shown at venues such as the BFI London Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, REDCAT, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, CROSSROADS, EXIS Experimental Film & Video Festival, among others.

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