2025–2026 A.I.R. FELLOWSHIP

DEADLINE: Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 11:59 PM ET

Info Session: Thursday, August 29, at 6 PM ET (Registration required)

Notification: April 2025


The A.I.R. Fellowship Program was established in 1993 by former artist member Stephanie Bernheim in order to support emerging and underrepresented women and non-binary artists in New York City. Each year, six artists are awarded a year-long fellowship to develop and exhibit a project at A.I.R. Gallery.

The A.I.R. Fellowship Program has awarded more than 120 artists the opportunity to have their first solo exhibition in New York City with the support of the A.I.R. community. The program encourages artistic experimentation and rigor by providing a space where feminist historical legacy and intergenerational dialogue are at the forefront. Essential to this process are a series of professional development workshops, close collaboration with an A.I.R. artist-mentor, and scheduled studio visits throughout the year, including one with a selection panelist.

Since 2009, A.I.R. Gallery has named one yearly A.I.R. Fellowship seat in memory of the artist, activist, writer, and feminist Emma Bee Bernstein (1985–2008). In recognition of Emma’s significant contributions as a young artist, the youngest A.I.R. Fellowship recipient receives the honor of holding the Emma Bee Bernstein Fellowship.

 

Eligibility

  • A woman or non-binary artist

  • 18 years of age or older

  • A resident of New York City, adjoining counties, or the Hudson Valley (Putnam, Dutchess, and Ulster counties) (September 2025–August 2026)

  • Have not had a solo exhibition at a permanent venue in NYC in the last 5 years

  • Not a student or enrolled in any degree seeking program at the time of the program (September 2025–August 2026)

  • Not participating in a comparable development, fellowship, or residency program at the time of the program at A.I.R. (September 2025–August 2026)

  • Not currently a member, employee, or board member of A.I.R. Gallery, and have not had a solo show at A.I.R.

  • Not a Fellowship alum

 

Benefits

  • Professional development workshops led by professionals in the field (Fall 2025)

  • A solo exhibition in Gallery II or III (Spring 2026)

  • Access to the gallery space, staff, resources, and career development assistance during program tenure

  • An artist-mentor at A.I.R. Gallery to work with throughout the program

  • One-on-one studio visit with one of the review panelists

  • An artist stipend (amount contingent on available funding)

APPLY HERE


PLEASE NOTE: This application is an anonymous review. Absolutely none of the submitted materials may include the artist’s name (the artist’s name may not appear in the file name or body of images, statement, CV, or any other submitted files). If a submitted file contains or is titled with the artist’s name, the submission will be disqualified and the artist will not be permitted to re-apply until the next Fellowship cycle. 


Selection Process

The selection review process is completely anonymous. The review is conducted by a three-person panel of outside curators, critics, and established artists. Artists are selected based on the quality of and commitment to their work. A final interview and selection is made by A.I.R. Artists. A mandatory in-person interview is held prior to being accepted to the program. The A.I.R. Fellowship Program is open to artists working in all media and is intended to support those who could most benefit from the opportunities that the program offers. Six artists will be awarded a Fellowship. Previous panelists have included: Rina Baneerjee, Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels, Phong Bui, Dan Cameron, Anaïs Duplan, Amber Esseiva, Nicole Fleetwood, Lia Gangitano, Stamatina Gregory, Marcela Guerrero, Gordon Hall, Leslie Hewitt, Matthew Higgs, Rujeko Hockley, Ruba Katrib, Baseera Khan, Christine Kim, Michelle Kuo, Florence Lynch, Piper Marshall, Catherine Morris, Lisa Oppenheim, Faith Ringgold, Lumi Tan, Andrea Scott, Xaviera Simmons, Sam Vernon, and Xiaoyu Weng.

This year’s 2025–2026 panelists are:

Media Farzin is a writer, curator, and art historian living in New York. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Bidoun, Brooklyn Rail, e-flux Criticism, Frieze, and TehranAvenue. She was recently curator of “Vibe Overgaard: Spindle City” at the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York and editor of the online community cookbook, Oral Traditions. An award-winning collaborative art project with artist Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, on the legacy of the Cold War and its modernist artifacts, has been exhibited internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2019. She received her BFA in Painting from Tehran University and a PhD in art history from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2020. She currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and serves on the board of Apexart.

Gavilán Rayna Russom is a visionary artist, scholar, and curator based in New York City. Over the past two decades she has produced a complex body of works oriented toward providing alternatives to binary thought and fixed modes of categorization. In addition to her recorded music, performance work, DJing practice, published writings, and exhibitions, Rayna is the founding director of Voluminous Arts, an organization whose mission is to foreground, nurture, and advance the experimental artistic culture of transgender people and communities.

Image credit: Elodie Adam

Lanka Tattersall is MoMA’s Laurenz Foundation Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints. She is currently organizing the exhibition Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, opening at MoMA in November 2024. Previous projects at the Museum include co-organizing Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. (2022), as well as curating The Modern Window: Caroline Kent (2022) and The Modern Window: Derrick Adams (2021). Previously, she was Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), where she organized the exhibitions Cameron Rowland: D37 (2018), Real Worlds: Brassaï, Arbus, Goldin (2018), and Lauren Halsey: we still here, there (2018), among others. At MOCA, she spearheaded a number of important commissions and performances, including works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Rafa Esparza, Juliana Huxtable, and P. Staff. She holds graduate degrees in art history from Columbia University and Harvard University.

Image Credit: Ohan Breiding

Have more questions?

Visit our Fellowship FAQ page here.

Learn more about our current and past Fellows here.

The A.I.R. Fellowship Program is made possible by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as the generous support of the Bernheim Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Materials for the Arts, Two Trees, and individual donors to the Emma Bee Bernstein Fund.