A Conversation with Art Remains Grantee alexandria monque ravenel

As we look back on the year, we’re feeling incredibly grateful to call Asheville home. To be surrounded by so many creative, generous, and resilient people. In the wake of Helene, we’ve been rebuilding the Asheville we hope to be a part of, together.

This summer, we gathered with our Art Remains grantees at Drop of Sun Studios for a community conversation, hearing directly from them about how the storm affected their work, how your support aided their recovery, and where they are now. We also sat down for a one-on-one conversation with alexandria monque ravenel of Noir Collective, and were deeply inspired by alexandria’s vision, leadership, and life-long commitment to community and collective care.

This conversation is a powerful reflection on resilience, collaboration, imagination, and the power of art to create change. We hope you enjoy watching this conversation, and we deeply encourage you to support alexandria’s work at Noir Collective!

 

Special thanks to This Land Films for filming and holding this conversation

Swannatopia | December 18, 2025 – January 15, 2026

, , ,

We are excited to welcome back our friends at Swannatopia to the residency. They have spent several December’s with us, and this year they return with: “Ribbon Time”!

 

Save the Date for:
Swannatopia Presents: Ribbon Time
Saturday, January 3rd | noon-Sunset Surprise (5:30)
with dance party + djs to follow

 

“Swannatopia Presents: Ribbon Time” will bring the people together again, to shimmer and shimmy among sights and sounds from their many large scale installations staged over the past year:

 

Puppet Fashion Pie (3/14 @ BMCM+AC), Ant Float Dream Boat (5/3 on Lake Eden @ RE{Happening}), Seed Circus (Summer Tour stops included Asheville Museum of Science summer camp, NC Mountain State Fair, and Utopian Seed Project’s Trial to Table at Hickory Nut Gap), JellGlo (10/11 @ Center For Craft), and Blue Goose Caboose (10/25 sunset parade through Swannanoa’s historic Beacon Village).

 

Featuring fresh ribbon choreography by A Clutch, Puppet Portals by Madeleine Sis, live A/V splendor by XOR+friends, neon wiggles by Vyvyan, and many more surprises, the day will culminate in a Sunset Surprise procession at 5:30 to/from Garden Party as we behold the gently rippling reflection of the terrestrial wonders all around us, and bask in the warm glow of friendship.

 

“Because sometimes you don’t win a blue ribbon at the fair, but what about all the other colors?”

Artist Statement:
We, of Swannatopia, are a group of experimental artists headquartered in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Over the past decade, we have set out to blur the lines between “artist” and “participant”, to defamiliarize the familiar, to nurture an immersive, whimsical, thoughtful, experience of empowerment and offer a glimpse of what is possible. To this end, our “Experimental Art Club” launched in 2021. An experiment in and of itself, Experimental Art Club aims to facilitate the free exchange of knowledge, experience, tools and materials, while bringing the people together to “make stuff for fun!”. To date, our multigenerational list of collaborators numbers in the hundreds.

Julianna Chioma | Nov 18 – Dec 16

, ,
We are excited to welcome Julianna Chioma to the residency! Throughout the course of her residency Julianna will be working on a series of work entitled Rage Bait, including both abstract and figurative paintings, and if time permits an installation as well as a movement based performance.

 

Rage Bait is a multidisciplinary project exploring the psychological and emotional landscapes of Black womanhood as both symbol and icon. Drawing inspiration from body horror, Nigerian folklore, and the aesthetics of online outrage culture, the work examines how the Black female body is consumed, distorted, and mythologized across media and imagination. Through mixed media paintings, installation, and performance, Rage Bait, aspires to reclaim the spectacle of rage, reframing it as a site of agency, multiplicity, and pleasure.

 

Save the Date for: 

Rage Bait
December 14th, 6-9 PM
a presentation showcasing latest works by Julianna Chioma
with live performances from:
Designer
Nina Gi
+ DJ set by Boys Camp

 

 

Artist Statement:
My work explores the psychological and emotional terrain of Black womanhood—an experience that is often mythologized, feared, and misunderstood. Through painting, textiles, ceramics, and performance, I construct hybrid mythologies where innocence and unease coexist. Drawing from Nigerian folklore, body horror, and the language of cartoons, I create figures that feel both playful and unsettling. Their stitched and layered surfaces become metaphors for visibility, vulnerability, and reclamation. I am interested in how joy and pain can inhabit the same image, how tenderness can emerge from dissonance. At its core, my practice is about autonomy and multiplicity. I seek to create spaces where the Black female body exists beyond the spectacle—where it can rest, transform, and simply exist.

 

Open House: Ephemera House | November 15th 7-10 PM

,

Artists Meg Mulhearn and David Lynch have envisioned a project where they bring the coast to the mountains. Many things today are experienced through a screen or grid, whether by social media or video, and they will use the idea of a grid or frame as a component in their work at Lamplight.

 

“Our recent experiments with printing, painting, projection, and sound have inspired an imagined realm with both terrestrial and oceanic elements. As the mountains speak of materialism, solidity, and proximity to the heavens themselves, the ocean and wetlands evoke a different type of depth and the power of oceanic circulation which regulates life on earth. Our hope is that the experience will facilitate deep reflection.”

 

Join us this Weekend:
Open House: Ephemera House
with Meg Mulhearn & David Lynch
Saturday, Nov 15th
7-10 PM

 

artist statement:
All creations are ephemeral and reflect the natural life cycle of bloom, decay, transformation, and absorption into new works of art. We are interdisciplinary artists and musicians, and our collection across forms, called Ephemera House, is a very human and joyously un-optimized attempt to acknowledge the past, present, and future of our creative lives in a series of moments.

Croctober Fest! 10/24 from 5-9 PM

At long last Croctober Fest is here! Rescheduled from last October,  this event will feature a playful series of silly Croc-inspired art + music from Corpse Dust and Busted Chops.

Each piece celebrates the iconic shoe with humor and charm, guaranteed to spark laughter and smiles. Lighthearted, quirky, and a little absurd—this collection is all about joy, fun, and creative Croc appreciation. We hope to see you on Friday!

 

The Moon Talkers Exhibition | Saturday, 9/20, 1-4PM

Saturday, September 20th, 1-4pm

Join us for an afternoon viewing of photographs taken by Jade Aster throughout the course of their residency!

Our current artist-in-residence, Experimental instant film photographer, Jade Aster, blends art and astronomy under the moniker, The Moon Talkers. Throughout their residency, Jade has been using instant film cameras (Polaroid and Instax) and a telescope to capture lunar and solar details on small pieces of instant film. As the moon cycled through its lunar month, they photographed each phase to show the changes in crater visibility and dark plains of the surface. Now, nearing the end of the residency, they will piece together the individual photographs side by side to create a larger mosaic of the lunar month.

We hope to see you this weekend!

Fundraising Gala at Drop of Sun

,

Join us for Lamplight’s second annual FUNDRAISING GALA hosted at Drop of Sun Studios! We want to gather with our community, dress up (sequins encouraged!), have a fun night, share some food and drink, and, of course, raise some money to benefit our Annual Fundraiser.

Your ticket to this event includes:

• Scrumptious hors d’oeuvres

• An open bar with cocktails, beer, and wine

• Karaoke with the best sound system in town

• A photo booth decorated by SWANNATOPIA

• A raffle full of incredible prizes from our sponsors

Don’t hesitate, tickets will go fast! We look forward to good food, good drink, and good tunes, all in the name of the Asheville arts community. We’ll see you there!

 

This event is sponsored by our friends at:

Garden Party  |  Everyday Oil  |  Harvest Records |  Greenhouse  |  Burial Beer  |  Visuals Wine  |  Knook Ceramics | Bagatelle Books  |  Character Study  |  Rowan Coffee  |  Haunt  |  Alexis Dunn Astrology  |  Kevin Rumley  |  Emily Easterly  |  Asheville Yards  |  N&W Cleaning  |  Alexis Dunn Astrology  |  Shared Language  |  Clad  |  Sauna House  |  Blind Tiger  |  AVL Clay  |  Leo’s  |  The Admiral

Martha Skinner | Community Making Sessions

At Lamplight AVL, Martha will be weaving herself into a drawing within a drawing of drawings – a durational performance in collaboration with light, space, and the visitors to the space as a series of participatory performances.

CoCocoon will be created with the participation of the community — and you’re all invited! Twice this month, Martha will open her creative space at Lamplight for collective knotting and weaving. Together, we will turn limp linear material into form and space: creating expressive explorations as varied as each of us. These gestures will become spatial notations that Martha will weave into a larger, inhabitable piece. The final work will grow and transform throughout the residency.

 

Join us for two Community Making Sessions:
THURSDAY, JULY 17 | 6:00-8:00 PM
Ronald Knight and Chris Aluka Berry will play the NAFlute and handpan while we weave and create together.

THURSDAY, JULY 24 | 6:00-8:00  PM
Chris Aluka Berry will play the NAFlute while we weave and create together.

Closing event on July 27th | 6:00-8:00  PM

Linda singing until 7pm

Drum Major Instinct x Katherine Young | June 21 7PM

,

Drum Major Instinct x Katherine Young

Presented by Lamplight AVL at Drop of Sun Studios

Lamplight AVL invites you to Drop of Sun Studios for a behind the scenes peak at a recording by Drum Major Instinct and Katherine Young. A limited number of guests will sit quietly in the live room, on the mezzanine, or in the control room to experience this live recording event.

reserve your tickets here

 

banner image by: John Ramspott

Drum Major Instinct is an experimental music duo from Asheville, North Carolina. Jeff Arnal plays (mostly) percussion and Curt Cloninger plays (mostly) modular synthesizer. The Wire describes Jeff’s drumming as a “highly original concept” having “a balletic sense of time and imaginative deployment of colour;” and Byron Coley says Curt’s modular synthesis “moves like blocks of radioactive adobe being shifted around by architects in space suits.” But, of course, nothing is ever that straightforward. The resultant music is about waves of energy, patterns within patterns (within patterns), sounds from the natural world, and running the voodoo down. Their self-titled first release is on Mahakala Music (2022) and their latest 2025 LP (entitled “Almost Nothing”) is on Haunted Apparatus.

Joining them for this live performance is Katherine Young. As a bassoonist and improviser, Katherine Young amplifies her instrument and employs a flexible electronics setup. She performs as a soloist, in ad hoc improvised groups, and with projects such as Beautifulish (duo with Sam Scranton) and Architeuthis Walks on Land (duo with Amy Cimini). Her debut solo album garnered praise in The Wire (“Bassoon colossus”) and Downbeat (“seriously bold leaps for the bassoon”). She has documented her work on numerous recordings, including her quartet Pretty Monsters self-titled debut, a duo recording with Anthony Braxton, and the multi-movement work “Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight” (Parlour Tapes+) created with violinist Austin Wulliman of the JACK Quartet. Katherine is based in Atlanta, where she teaches composition, electronic music, and improvisation at Emory University. In 2021, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. As a scholar, she researches the incorporation of idiosyncratic electronics and improvisation in contemporary notated music.

Nava Lubelski Opening Event

Join us Saturday for Who Are We and Who Have We Been, an opening of works from our May artist in residence, Nava Lubelski, plus a musical performance by TangleDust.

The artist states:

“The project is a large-scale immersive environment constructed of the delicate details associated with traditional folk handcrafts. Using needlework in expressive, chaotic and destructive ways has long been a signature in my work and with this project my approach is to challenge the viewer to find beauty in the breakdown, seeing tangles and snarls as intricate lace, and allowing the seductive and satisfying qualities of embroidery to be used in service of memorializing stains and other random marks. My work is adamantly analog and I see this elevation of folk crafts as being a puzzling over the marginalization of the decorative and the handmade, making space for conceptual work that isn’t simplified or flattened in presentation, and yet, also isn’t tidy and dependent on displays of controlled skill for it’s meaning.”

We look forward to seeing you this weekend!

Saturday, May 31st | 5pm-7pm
821 Haywood Road
+ music at 7PM by TangleDust
(Stephen Barnard and Mike Holstein)

This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.