Anna Samo is a director, animator, and process driven artist. She carved out her path as independent filmmaker notable for the playful use of materials and analog animation techniques. Samo sees animation as a way to think with her hands in order to process what happens outside of the studio walls. Her work explores the human condition and questions the place and responsibilities of the artist in a world troubled by disasters and violence. Anna’s award-winning short films are screened around the globe at film festivals and spark conversations in classrooms as part of educational programs. She is one the co-founders of Animation Speak/Easy a bi-monthly screening and discussion series in Brooklyn, New York celebrating the art of animation. Anna has received fellowships from the Toepfer Stiftung, the Rotary Foundation, and Jerome Foundation.

During her residency at Camargo, Samo plans to focus on developing her new animated experimental sci-fi short The Friend. The project examines the hopes, dreams, and fears of humans in relation to Artificial Intelligence and questions how our biological nature and self-consciousness inform our experience of the world around us.

Photo by Tom Bergmann.

Anaïs Maviel is an artist, vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist dedicated to translating spiritual concepts to sensory experiences, using sound as medicine & alchemy. With traditional and experimental approaches, her works investigate the power of sound to shape reality and emphasize the relevance of cultural hybridity. She navigates song, choral, instrumental, orchestral music and staging with a strong connection to cosmologies of sound and speech rooted in oral traditions such as mantra and ring shout. Recent collaborators across mediums include Alarm Will Sound, Sean Webley, The Rhythm Method, Nene Humphrey & Aruán Ortiz. Maviel facilitates vocal liberation with a focus on the body, its environmental, archetypal and cosmic resonances. Both of Maviel’s solo albums received international acclaim; among the generous press shout outs, Jazz Right Now has called her a “unique aesthetic visionary.”

During her residency, she will study and experiment with healing, spirituality and embodiment through sound, to bridge esoteric knowledge such as Vedic cosmology of sound, nada yoga (yoga of sound), psychoacoustics and meditation with composition tools such as just intonation, sound design, rhythm and harmony as they relate to sacred geometry.

Photo by Sean Webley.

So + Bex are best friends who first met in 2015, who craft immersive performances that feel like a cross between stand up comedy, campfire conversation, and the best kind of history lesson. Both alumni of EMERGENYC—the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program, So and Bex’s first performance together was a part of a partnership with Art in Odd Places. They began developing their collaborative artistic vocabulary at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), first as participants in the Upstart Program 2017, Space Grantees 2018, and then as Artists in Residence (2019-21). They were selected to show work at The Brick’s Trans Theatre Festival in July 2018, Spring 2019 BRIClab residents, and were featured at the Highline’s Out of Line series in July 2019. As solo artists, they have been invited to present at theaters, galleries, and universities in Singapore and the U.S., including La MaMa, the National Asian American Theater Company, and 3LD. So + Bex were 2021–22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellows and are 2024 MAP Fund Grantees.

At the Camargo Residency, So and Bex are thrilled to have the opportunity to dive deeper into their research for REUNION, their full-length, live performance styled as a historical thriller.

Photo by Carlos David.