Visiting Artist Series
This residency is supported by the AHLSS Committee as part of its commitment to amplifying socially engaged art and fostering inclusive spaces across campus.
2026–2027 Visiting Artists
Nicholas Dunston, composer | November 2026
Nick Dunston is an acoustic and electroacoustic composer, improviser, and sound artist.
Called an “indispensable player on the New York avant-garde" (New York Times), his performances have spanned a variety of venues and festivals
across North America and Europe. His work explores notions of ancestral memory, materiality,
embodiment, decolonization, and Afro-surrealism.
Seba Calfuqueo, visual artist | February 2027
Sebastiana (Seba) Calfuqueo (she/they, Santiago de Chile, 1991) is a Mapuche trans
artist and curator at Espacio218, Santiago de Chile. She is a member of the Mapuche collective Rangiñtulewfü and of Revista Yene. Through her work, Calfuqueo draws on her cultural heritage and lived experience
as a starting point to propose a critical reflection on the social, cultural, and
political dynamics that shape the Mapuche subject within contemporary Chilean and
Latin American society.
History
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Sponsor: the Lichtenstein Center
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is author of three books of poetry: Something
About Living (UAkron, 2024), winner of the 2024 National Book Award and winner of
the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, Kaan & Her Sisters (Trio House Press), finalist for
the 2024 Firecracker Award and honorable mention for the 2024 Arab American Book Award,
Water & Salt (Red Hen), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award and honorable
mention for the 2018 Arab American Award. She is also the author of two chapbooks,
Arab in Newsland, winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and Letters from the Interior (Diode, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize.
Gad Yola
Sponsor: Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies & the Center for Changing Systems of Power
Gad Yola is a drag artist/migrant living in Madrid, who articulates her creation from a queer anti-racist
perspective. Her debut was with the collective Dont Hit La Negra (2019-2020). She
is part of La Casa Drag Latina, a collective of migrant drags that, since 2019, claim
their place in the artistic scenes of the Spanish context. She has been an instructor
of the Drag queen / Drag king workshop together with the Ayllu Collective in Matadero
(2019); she was part of the public program Pensar con las entrañas, held at the Matadero
Madrid Art Residency Center (2019). She has been a speaker at digital festivals coordinated
from Lima, such as Cabritas resistiendo and Pussy pussy orgullo. In Madrid, she has
also participated in the Usergender microfestival, GALAXXIA project (2020).
Dean Arlen and Adele Todd
Sponsor: Sociology, & the Center for Changing Systems of Power
Artists Dean Arlen and Adele Todd —both based in Trinidad and Tobago—for a two-week residency from September 29 - October
10, 2025. Their residency, titled "The Room," invited students, faculty, and community members
to participate in a series of interactive workshops that explored how collaborative
art practices and social justice aesthetics can reshape communal space, specifically
Stony Brook's Staller Steps. Participants engaged with the artists through drawing,
modeling, and dialogue, culminating in a artists' presentation and publication showcasing the ideas and designs generated during the residency. Learn more from SBU News coverage for The Room.