Kristen Marx has spent her career in service to artists and the arts sector for over 15 years through various roles at places such as the McKnight Foundation, Walker Art Center, Park Square Theatre, Ordway, and Jungle Theater. She is a passionate practitioner of equity and social change work fueled by the desire to dismantle “ism’s” and make positive change for current and future generations. 

Kristen is an actress and a playwright. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Arts in Arts and Cultural Management from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. 

Melissa Levin is a values-driven arts administrator, artist-centered curator, and steadfast advocate for just and equitable practices in the arts. For more than 12 years, Melissa worked at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) where she was the Vice President of Cultural Programs. Her role encompassed wide-ranging institutional and artistic leadership, overseeing LMCC’s major artist-centered and public-facing initiatives including the River To River Festival, the Arts Center at Governors Island, and LMCC’s artist residency programs. She next led a newly formed Artists, Estates, and Foundations division at Art Agency, Partners in its inaugural three years. Starting in 2016, with collaborator Alex Fialho, Melissa has stewarded the legacy of and curated critically acclaimed exhibitions dedicated to the late artist Michael Richards, including Michael Richards: Winged (LMCC, 2016; Stanford University, 2019) and Richards’ first museum retrospective, Michael Richards: Are You Down? (The Bronx Museum, 2023–24; North Carolina Museum of Art, 2023; MOCA North Miami, 2021).

Melissa additionally serves on the boards of the Artist Communities Alliance and Danspace Project. She holds a B.A. with honors in Visual Art and Art History from Barnard College.

Born in Saigon and rooted in Minneapolis, Truc Anh (TA, pronouns she/hers) is a queer, Southeast Asian artist/maker, and racial justice grantmaker. She is passionate about creating the conditions for transformative change that centers racial, gender, and disability justice, especially at the intersections of LGBTQIA+ and Southeast Asian communities. In her previous role at Borealis Philanthropy, TA supported the Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund which supported racial equity practitioners/capacity builders in the nonprofit sector.

As a 1.5 generation immigrant by way of war, Truc Anh is powered by stories of resistance and resilience. She practices art for healing and for joy. In her spare time, TA can be found outside in her garden, exploring the North Shore, cooking with her friends, or reading. Truc Anh graduated from Carleton College with a degree in Sociology and Anthropology with a minor in Women & Gender Studies. 

Leila Bordreuil is a French American cellist, composer, sound artist, and community organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her music accesses concepts from free jazz, contemporary classical, noise music, and other experimental traditions but adheres to no single genre. Driven by a fierce interest in resonance, pure sound, and inherent texture, Leila challenges conventional instrument practice through extreme extended techniques and amplification methods. Her compositions frequently incorporate sound-spatialization by way of site-specific pieces and multichannel installations. Leila’s body of work has grown from and is embedded in New York’s underground music scene. When she is not performing, she is a dedicated community organizer, programmer, producer, and sound engineer in New York’s DIY music scene. Leila’s work has been showcased internationally, including at The Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, Lincoln Center, The Kitchen, Issue Project Room, Barbican (London), Berlin Atonal, Art Basel (Switzerland), Le Guess Who (Utrecht), Bozar Museum (Brussels) and countless DIY basements across the USA and Europe. Leila received a 2021-2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in music.

At Camargo, Leila will be researching the physics, philosophy, aesthetics, and spirituality of “resonance,” in tandem with her practice of feedback and site-specific composition. She will be working with Marseille-based neuroscientists to study the perception of resonance and investigate the “acoustic archeology” of three medieval Cistercian abbeys in the Provence region.

Photo by Victoria Alexandrova

Simon Liu’s practice centers on cataloging the rapidly evolving psychological and political landscapes within his homeland of Hong Kong through alternate documentary forms, abstract diary films, video installation, and 16mm projection performance. His work has been exhibited at institutions including MOCA LA, SFMoMA, The Shed, PICA, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Everson Museum, Moderna Museet, and is in the permanent collections of MoMA and the M+ Museum. Additionally, his work has been featured in film festivals including New York, Berlin, Toronto, Sundance, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Melbourne, Edinburgh, Jeonju, BFI London, and Hong Kong. Profiles of his work have been featured in Art in America, Cinemascope, New York Magazine, Hyperallergic, and MUBI. Liu is a teacher at Cooper Union, a member of the artist-run film lab Negativeland and is currently editing his first feature film Staffordshire Hoard. Simon received a 2019-2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in film, video and digital production.

Simon’s focus at the Camargo Residency will be work on a series of 35mm short films utilizing meticulous frame-by-frame animation techniques on physical photochemical materials, and addressing new realities of misinformation, digital consciousness, and cultural disappearance.

Photo provided by the artist.

Su Hwang (she/her/hers) is a poet, activist, stargazer, and the author of Bodega (Milkweed Editions), which received the 2020 Minnesota Book Award in poetry and was named a finalist for the 2021 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Born in Seoul, Korea, she was raised first in New York and then called the Bay Area home before transplanting to the Midwest. She works with the Minnesota Prison Writing workshop and is cofounder of Poetry Asylum, with poet Sun Yung Shin. Su received a 2019-2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in literature.

During the Camargo residency, Su will complete her second poetry collection titled ARKS. She will also conduct research for a new experimental, hybrid text, Invasive Me. Fusing personal essay, memoir, and prose poetry, this work reflects on how various flora and fauna—like the Spotted Lantern Fly and Emerald Ash Borer—have impacted the places she’s called home, and how through certain language and positionality, human beings are invariably juxtaposed, classified, and othered as “invasive.” In and around Cassis, she will examine the effects of blue crabs that are reportedly wreaking havoc along the French Mediterranean.

Photo provided by the artist.

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American poet and playwright. CNN’s “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell called her work “revolutionary.” She is best known for her Kung Fu Zombies play cycle. Her work has been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Theater Mu, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, and elsewhere. She’s currently a fellow with the Bush Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the Center for Cultural Power. Saymoukda was a recent writer in residence at Hedgebrook and Djerassi by invitation of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. Saymoukda received a 2021-2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in theater. For more details, go to www.refugenius.net or @refugenius.

During her residency, Saymoukda will conduct research, write, and connect with the local culture and people in Cassis. To better inform her new musical, In the Camps: A Refugee Musical, she plans to do closer readings and research of academic writing, news articles, reports and data from decision-making bodies, and legislation that has aided refugees from Southeast Asia.

Photo by John Schaidler