2026 ART NYC Venice Residency
Selection Review
The Foundation of ART NYC reviewed applications based on the following criteria:
- Artistic / Academic Quality — The depth and quality of the applicant’s artistic, academic, and research background.
- Originality & Conceptual Development — The originality of the proposed project and its potential for further conceptual development.
- Project Feasibility — Whether the proposed research and creative work can be realistically carried out within the residency period and environment.
- Relevance to Venice & the Residency Program — How meaningfully Venice and the residency experience contribute to the development of the proposed project.
- Professional Background & Future Potential — The applicant’s previous professional activities and the potential for continued development beyond the residency.
Session 1 Selected Participant — Hailey Long
Selection Review
Long’s proposal was recognized for its approach to weaving, lace, and rope through writing, archival research, and material exploration.
The review particularly valued the fact that the residency is conceived not simply as a setting in which to continue an existing body of work, but as an active period of research and development. The relationship between material investigation, observation, writing, and archival practice provides a clear framework for the project to evolve during the residency.
The proposed research is also well suited to the scale and working environment of the ART NYC Venice Residency. Venice itself has the potential to become an important part of the research process, allowing new observations and discoveries to inform the work.
The Foundation also recognized the project’s potential to develop into a distinctive long-term practice connecting material research, writing, and artistic investigation.
Final Decision: SELECTED
protective soles
poems by ives long
written in venice, italy
BIRTH // REBIRTH
When a knot forms it entangles everything in its path
Growing bigger by consumption
At it’s start its a single thread
Solitude
Science says we are all made up of vibrating strands
But what if mine is tangled
Can I undo it myself?
Can I do it myself?
Can I undo myself?
I gave up on untying myself a long time ago
Succumb to the knot tied to my core
Feeding it strand by strand
Pulling at my ego, protected by my numbness
But I think it's time to let go
To be consumed by the knot
I think to really find something you need to see the center
The pinpoint, the origin
As nothing ever begins, constantly stuck in a perpetual middle
I dive deeper
As pain intensifies it transforms into absence
Ultimately everything turns into nothing
When something hurts it brings me confort
There is passion in the pain
There is history in the scar
There is always a knot in the strand
Cracking perfection
Disrupted rebellion
I submit to the freedom that seeks to control me
I used to pride myself on not crying
It felt weak to manifest my pain
Tears falling, teeth vibrating
My hands shakeAnd the floor is the only thing that can hold me
Solitude is quiet
Silence screams
and some feelings have no words
But it feels good to be free
To exist in a world turned to black
Living at the center becomes me
Perceived emptiness filled with everything
When I was little I would stare at myself in the mirror
Brushing my hair as flat as I could
Glued to my head, hidden
I pulled it so tight it would hurt
Bristles from my brush banging on a scalp
Every morning I redid my braids
Undoing the previous day’s tangles
Curls bound to each other, parts separated-
Tension had a permanent residency on my head
You can’t run from yourself
I've tried
You end up running into yourself
A strand in the part
A part in the braid
A braid in sculpture of my identity
Unable to escape you must accept
That when you mix every color together
You always get black
It always comes back
When a knot forms it entangles everything in its path
Growing bigger by consumption
At it’s start its a single thread
Solitude
MEMORY
Do you live your life forwards or backwards?
When we are born we arrive alone
Living backwards from the beginning
Crying, screaming,
Breathing
Breathing
Breathing
No one tells us to take that first breath
The first of a million repeated inhales
The second instinct we can’t go a minute without
We start an endless cycle
Our only constant
We move from zero to one
Our first step into a life of unknown direction
I like to think I was born neutral
A blank space
A full circle
Nothing in the inside but complete as a whole
An inexplicable void I have been trying to fill my whole life
Each experience washed in a well of dark oblivion
Checking boxes for fulfillment
Only to use a pen with no ink
I constantly repeat moments in my head
Perfect pinches of pain
Jabs of joy
Qualifying memory, Quantifying time
I move forward only to live backwards
Steps to rinse and repeat
An endless wash cycle
Stripped strands so dry they could crack
A tangled pool of interconnected thoughts
That I will never get back
Always off trackI don’t remember my first years of life
Maybe because my memory only works in reverse
It can’t compute a time with no past
No memory
No recollection
Innocence was forgettable
Purity is precious
But once memory’s build
Perfection is inadequate
Compounded
That’s the point of the void
It will never be full but always complete
There is no end
The middle is the beginning,
The end the start,
And the start a neverending cycle
All we can do is breathe
Each exhale bringing us closer
Connected