"Research" is often framed as a cold and objective pursuit–something outside of our other lived experiences. In this workshop, participants will work in pairs and small groups to delve into our various creative practices (as artists, scientists, or otherwise), and help fashion our next steps of inquiry that are at once rigorous and inviting of our whole selves. By the end of the workshop, each participant will emerge with 1-2 research questions they are excited to explore and that spark curiosity, joy, and rejuvenation for their practice.

Date: This one-time online workshop meets on Thursday, October 7 from 7-9pm ET via Zoom.

Price: Free (Suggested $10 donation)

Audience: Open to all.

Materials: Please have writing materials available.

Janani Balasubramanian is a multimedia artist, working across installation, image, live and immersive performance, emerging media, poetry, and prose. Janani's practice aims to bring insights from contemporary science into useable, playful, divine, and mythic places in everyday life.

Janani is an artist-in-residence in the brown dwarf astrophysics group at the American Museum of Natural History; 2021-2022 Pew Foundation grantee through the Academy of Natural Sciences; 2021-2022 Collider fellow at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; 2021 NYFA Fellow in Fiction; and member of the Guild of Future Architects.

Additionally, Janani's work has been presented and/or commissioned by over 160 venues across North America and Europe including the Public Theater, Red Bull Arts, High Line, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have been an innovator-in-residence at Colorado College; artist-in-residence at Brooklyn College; artist-in-residence at the University of Colorado; Hemispheric Institute Fellow at NYU; Sundance Institute Fellow; Pioneer Works Narrative Arts Fellow; visiting artist at Stanford University Institute for Diversity in the Arts; Jerome Hill Artist Fellow; and Van Lier Fellow at the Public Theater. They have received additional development support from MAP Fund; Stanford University Ethics, Society, and Technology Hub; Tow Foundation; and National Endowment for the Arts.

Please note, this online workshop will begin promptly at the listed start time. In order to ensure the quality of instruction for all participants, late entry will not be permitted. For questions, please contact education@pioneerworks.org.

This program is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Classes at Pioneer Works are made possible by Sandeman Port.