Photography by Avery Savage

To close out The Shed’s Open Call: Portals series, we’re spotlighting Chelsea Odufu, a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans film, photography, sculpture, performance, and design. Her installation Gold with a Mind of Its Own explores the lasting imprint of the gold trade in Côte d’Ivoire through movement and visual language, using the body as a tool for reflection and resistance.

Now living between Abidjan and New York, Chelsea brings a global perspective to everything she creates, shaped by movement across mediums, across continents, and across dimensions of Black identity.

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Photography by Dana White

Nada Esmaeel’s work is alive and vibrant, rich in detail and color. In addition to paintings, illustrations and animations, she has also designed 3D gaming environments where woven rugs hang from the walls and colored lanterns are strung across an intimate courtyard. But in each of these varied mediums, the subject is almost always Palestinian people and their culture.

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Photography & Intro by Nabila Wirakusumah

When I first came across Kaarina Chu Mackenzie’s Night Market series, I could hear the chatter of crowds, the slapping of fish on butcher blocks and the thin but pervasive buzz of fluorescent bulbs illuminating each stand. I could smell the smoke wafting from the open grills and the sweet scent of batter cooking in cast iron. The paintings were depicting markets in Taiwan and China, but I’ve walked through similar scenes in Thailand and Indonesia. 

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