Recently MFA alumni Lea Devon Sorrentino ‘12 spent time at the Arteles Creative Residency program in Hämeenkyrö, Finland. During the month of April she was able to spend dedicated time in the remote region pursuing a social media based project called, Friend Request, along with a collaborative project, Identity Protection Task Force. Arteles throughout the year invites 90 artists from around the world to participate in the program. Sorrentino was afforded the opportunity to work closely with multi-disciplinary artists in a collective environment, while also traveling throughout the country. All of the artists are showcased in a group exhibition, and incorporated into a catalog demonstrating the work generated during the tenure of their stay.

In addition to the Arteles residency Sorrentino has started two working collaborative projects, Lunchtime and Negative Jam. Lunchtime is a collaboration with fellow Minneapolis College of Art and Design MFA Alumni Molly May. This humored based multimedia exploration takes a look at popular culture through the lens of two female artists and tries to contextualize the absurdity of modern media. Each week the duo releases short videos and images that communicate a light-hearted examination to the world most Americans subscribe.

For Negative Jam, Sorrentino works with self-defined culture maker Chris Cloud. This multi-disciplinary, multi-talented, multi-racial, multi-gender conceptual multimedia artists primarily work with internet based concepts. Negative Jam will be going to their first residency as a collective this July at ACRE in Wisconsin. ACRE’s residency program is open nationally to emerging and mid-career visual, performing, and sound artists. There were 550 applicants for the program this year and we couldn’t be more excited about being among the 80 selected artists asked to participate. Negative Jam also looks forward to being involved beyond this summer, since ACRE operates programming in Chicago designed to further support the artists who’ve attended the residency.