2025 Residents

Ishani Chokshi is an artist and lawyer who wages art upon Law by making womanist interventions into traditional legal pedagogy so as to turn theaters of Law into theatres of the oppressed.

Valeria (Val) Costa is an American-Peruvian graphic designer and artist whose work explores the intersections of visual storytelling, environmental and social justice, and alternative ways of being. Her practice is grounded in care, using design as a tool for reconnection between people, place, and planet. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in graphic design and has worked in freelance and institutional contexts, including in the Marketing and Communications Department at the California Institute of the Arts. Recently, she aided in the creation of Blue Echo, a CalArts student-led group developed in collaboration with The World Resources Institute to explore how art can spark conversation and inspire action around the ocean as a vital solution to the world’s climate challenges. 

Hu Di (b. 1993, Chengdu, China) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, performance, and interactive installation. She holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), an MS in Computer Science from Zhejiang University, and a BS in Physics from Beijing Normal University. Hu Di’s work often incorporates found materials and technology to explore the absurdities embedded in everyday life, the whimsical nature of longing for intimacy, and the surreal mechanics of social systems through participatory and immersive experiences. Recent solo exhibitions include Echo Chamber Realms, where a group of puppets embody conflicting desires for validation and affection, and On the Back of Silver Dragon, a kinetic installation that uses miniature cities and AI-generated imagery to reflect on class, fragility, and illusion in contemporary life. Her work has been exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum, Łódź, and CalArts. She has received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant as well as multiple project grants from CalArts. In addition to her artistic practice, Hu Di teaches at CalArts and Loyola Marymount University.

MK Velsorf is a Danish composer and artist based in Los Angeles, who works with music, installation and moving image. He studied visual arts at Malmö Art Academy and Cooper Union School of Art in New York before coming to CalArts to study music composition with Michael Pisaro-Liu and filmmaking with James Benning. He has an ongoing collaboration with artists Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, who runs New Theater Hollywood, for whom he composed the scores for the series Paradise (2022) and THEATER (2025). He released the albums Opening Night with Aase Nielsen on the label Awe in 2025; and Sweet Harmony with the group TLF Trio on the label Latency in 2022. His installation and photographic work has been exhibited at Galleri Arnstedt in Sweden and Shower in Seoul.

Xiaofeng Guo (B.1995, Inner Mongolia, China) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Earning an MFA (’20) in Photographic and Electronic Media at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). He recently graduated with an MFA in Experimental Animation (’25) from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Born in China, Xiaofeng grew up in constant migration, navigating between diverse cultural contexts. This state of transience and the instability of identity have fostered a heightened sensitivity to the fragility of contemporary existence. The image of “home,” at once intimate and emblematic of belonging, has gradually become a core concept in his practice. His works often evoke a quiet surface beneath which a latent sense of crisis unfolds, revealing the tensions faced by individuals within the conditions of globalization. As his understanding of social structures deepened, Xiaofeng came to recognize that individual narratives do not exist in isolation. They are shaped by history, concealed beneath political motives, and embedded in the construction and reconstruction of landscapes, well as in the shaping of migration routes and the fabric of everyday life. Xiaofeng works across photography, moving image, sound, animation, and installation, using a distinctive visual language to depict a world where randomness, disorder, personal memory, and trauma coexist. He seeks to extract personal experience from emotional narration, approaching it through a restrained and universal perspective.

Erica Min is a gemini moon and graduate of the MA in Aesthetics & Politics from the School of Critical Studies at California Institue of the Arts. Research interests include power, narrativity, and anticolonial artworks. They were formerly book editing at One World. Her current publication projects are collaborations with Erika Keck, Michele Lorusso, Kiko Thomas, and Cevera Yoon Gallery.

Ashwath Ram is an Indian actor based in LA and Chennai. He loves bringing a lot of worldly cultures into his performance practices. He just completed his MFA in acting at CalArts, Los Angeles. He has had experience in an array of film, theater and Voice overs, he has worked with institutions and theater companies such as Hollywood fringe, Theatre movement Bazaar and TEDx. Theater credits include Danton’s Death (Hunter Abaal), Être, Jouer et Performer (Laurent Berger), Mother courage and her children (Ilse castro), Othello (Mirjana Jokovic), Drip (Morgan Mcdonald), The Overcoat (Tina Kronis). Select film credits: The Final Battle, Detention of the Damned. IG: @ashwathram23

Gigi Ramsland is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and film maker based in Los Angeles. Exploring the potentials and implications of process itself, she works with extreme slowness, emerging textures, long forms, noise, text, and sound as sculpture. Her work examines and reworks modern sonic realities, elevating fragments and artifacts, the unseen and the in-between. While seeking freedom from intellect in both creation and improvisation, her work holds space for optimism and change.

Dionne M. Robinson is an actress, playwright, and teaching artist from Columbus, Mississippi, now proudly rooted in the Los Angeles area. Her work lives at the intersection of performance and purpose, drawing inspiration from her Southern roots, the fire of her foremothers, and the rich tapestry of Black womanhood. Dionne is passionate about telling complex, emotionally layered stories that center Black women, often infused with elements of mysticism, ancestry, and spiritual journeying.

With a Bachelor of Science in Elementary and Special Education from the University of Southern Mississippi and an MFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts, Dionne brings both heart and soul to her artistic practice and her work as an educator. She currently serves as an itinerant elementary theatre teacher with LAUSD, where she guides young artists in discovering the power of their voices and stories.

During this residency, Dionne is developing her first original play, AVA on FIRE—a piece that explores legacy, resistance, and rebirth through the lens of a Black woman finding her way back to herself. The residency marks a significant milestone in Dionne’s evolution as both an artist and a cultural worker committed to healing through storytelling. 

Learn more about Dionne and her creative journey at www.dionnemrobinson.com.

Dar San Agustin (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist from Manila, Philippines whose work explores labor, care, and the commodification of the body. Her process often begins with a personal experience that quietly expands into shared narratives shaped by survival and cultural memory. She works across photography, installation, object-making and bookmaking. She creates tactile forms of reflection and resistance using low-cost or discarded materials. Her work has been exhibited in artist-run spaces, galleries, and institutions across the Philippines, Singapore, Los Angeles, and Arizona. She earned her MFA in Photography & Media with a minor in Art Education from CalArts.

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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Ingrid Yu-Ju Tai is an award-winning Taiwanese graphic designer based in Los Angeles. Specializing in typography and illustration, her work spans print, web, and visual identity design. She has contributed to publication projects for institutions including The Getty, UCLA Art|Sci, Craft Contemporary, and Campbell Hall, and assisted on the PBS-screened documentary Dallas, 2019. Her work balances experimentation with practical solutions, resulting in tailored strategies and thoughtful design for each project. She’s also drawn to creating tangible objects and using materiality as an additional conceptual layer in her work.

Chorong Yang (she/her) is a South Korean-born dance artist currently based in Los Angeles. She holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and an MFA in Choreography from the California Institute of the Arts, where she also serves as an adjunct faculty member. 

As a choreographer, Chorong’s creative work focuses on amplifying imperfection, vulnerability, and spontaneity, drawing from the inherent flaws of human experience. She views intuition as a vital tool in choreography and is dedicated to training it as a fundamental part of her practice. In addition to her studio practice, she is particularly interested in the integration of choreography and film, seeking to explore new ways of experiencing movement. 

Chorong has been recognized for her choreographic work in various settings, including as a resident artist at the Blue 13 Playdate Residency, MATCH residency and a commissioned choreographer for CalArts’ Fall24 department show. Additionally, her debut dance film was selected for screening at the Cinedans Film Festival in the Netherlands.

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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