Danielle Brensinger received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Glass from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2012. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York where she works as a freelance glassblower, artist assistant and educator out of UrbanGlass. Brensinger also currently works as an adjunct professor at Salem Community College in New Jersey. She has received full scholarships from the Celebrity Fund and the Tommie Rush and Richard Jolley Scholarship Fund to attend classes at the Corning Museum of Glass and the Penland School of Crafts. Danielle has also been able to attend Pilchuck Glass School and the Bild-Werk Academy in Frauenau, Germany as a teaching assistant for both glass blowing and bronze casting classes.

Kamil Kak is an interdisciplinary artist deeply engaged in blending traditional craft with video work. Their proposed project for the Pilchuck Glass School residency focuses on creating glass props that will be integral to video performances. These performances are not just artistic expressions but are part of a larger, multifaceted project currently developing in collaboration with others, spanning various venues such as Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, NK Temautstillingen, OCA, and Artica Svalbard.

The central theme of Kak’s project is an exploration of post-apocalyptic humor and hauntology, particularly focusing on the mine as a metaphorical and literal site of inquiry. With its layered history and symbolism, this site will be the nexus from which they develop their glass props and video performances. Kak intends to use the studio space at Pilchuck to experiment with glass as a medium, crafting pieces that resonate with the themes of nature reclaiming human spaces, the interplay of the living and non-living, and the dialogue between past injustices and current environmental challenges.

Tahirah Rasheed aims to spearhead public-facing projects promoting diversity in the Neon art world. The focus is on amplifying the voices of black women through abstract and figurative neon pieces. These artworks will highlight the contributions and struggles of black women, whether alive or deceased, strategically placed in public spaces across Oakland. Addressing the underrepresentation of Black artists in the industry, Rasheed will be dedicated to working with glass tubes, primarily using neon and xenon to create impactful and meaningful installations.

KCJ Szwedzinski recently told students, “As a disability rights advocate and disabled woman, I make ableist work.” As a visual artist, she makes work that relies on sight as an access point. Spending time as an EAiR, she will experiment with work that doesn’t rely solely on sight for engagement. Szwedzinski’s proposal considers cultural diffusion through the exploration of a noise making device called a ratchet; a simple instrument made of three parts: a cog, a handle, and a weighted slat. Several cultures adopted the instrument for its simplistic form but changed its context and name. Cultural diffusion is the mechanism that causes ideas to be adopted, re-imagined, and re-purposed from culture to culture. Ratchets aren’t the only example of one object migrating across different groups of people. Much of her past work investigates cultural diffusion through the lens of the Jewish diaspora.

She seeks to understand how historical narratives migrate and become weaponized or manipulated to benefit some and injure others. Areas of research include literature of the Holocaust, the male dominated textual legacy of Judaism and the separation, or lack, of church and state in Catholicism. Her work centers ritual and object to ask if there are relative or absolute delineations within and between categories such as religion, culture, ethnicity, and nationality. Szwedzinski seeks to question if there are hard and fast boundaries to belief and classification systems. When closely examined; is it things taught or lived experience that shape a person more?

Ostap Ivanyshyn is a Ukrainian glass artist working in kiln-forming techniques. In 2000 to 2004, Ivanyshyn studied art wood at the I. Thrush Lviv State College of Fine and Applied Arts. He is a  2010 graduate of Lviv National Academy of Arts with a MA degree in glass. He has been a teacher in the glass department at LNAA since 2016. In 2018, Ivanyshyn started working on his scientific research on kiln-forming technique of glass art in Central and Eastern Europe at the beginning of XX – at the beginning of XXI century. His artworks are selected for local and international exhibitions. Ivanyshyn participates in local and international symposiums.