Cecilia Jurado Chueca named 2022-2023 Artist-In-Residence at Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling

NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling is pleased to announce the selection of Cecilia Jurado (CJ) Chueca as its 2022-2023 artist-in-residence, and she joins a program that has hosted notable artists such as Derek Fordjour and David Shrobe, among others. This 8-month residency comes with a stipend and culminates with a solo exhibition at the Museum. The Sugar Hill Children's Museum artist-in-residence also receives professional development and has the opportunity to learn new pedagogical approaches for engaging with children and the surrounding community of West Harlem and Washington Heights.

Since 2003, Jurado has lived between Lima, Peru where she was born, and New York. As a child, her family moved between different homes in Lima and she spent time in Mexico, both in Mexico City and Oaxaca.  Chueca's history as a perpetual immigrant has led her to explore the concepts of home, territory, transition, multiculturality, uprooting, and solitude her work focuses on those lives that are still on the road (or without route) in the streets of the world.

"I am beyond excited and grateful to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Sugar Hill Museum," says Chueca. "Their program is thoughtful and relevant to multicultural New York, not only to adults but to children, for whom they organize an extensive variety of workshops. I thank the directors and the curator for this residency. I can't wait to start."

"We have a track record of welcoming exceptional artists into our program, and CJ continues that brilliant tradition," says the Museum's director Rob Fields. "That she brings her experience as both a Latin woman and an immigrant to her work will resonate with the community members we serve from our location at the intersection of West Harlem and Washington Heights."

"As a contemporary art museum that looks for innovative ways to engage audiences often left out of the conversation (children, immigrants, marginalized communities), it's gratifying to see the ease with which CJ engages all them without compromising, watering down, or downplaying the rigorousness of her practice,", noted Damien Davis, the Museum's curator, who was also its 2018-2019 artist-in-residence. "This proves that we can be both a children's museum and a serious space for contemporary thinkers. This program speaks to the core of the work we are trying to do, and I am excited to watch CJ contribute her thoughts, work and care to that emergent legacy."

A jury of artists and art world professionals––artists Chris Bogia, Max Colby and Lucia Hierro, along with Times Square Arts Director Jean Cooney, arts administrator and curator Tara Foster of the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and Charlene Melville, The Associate Executive Director and Chief Program Officer at Broadway Housing Communities––selected a group of finalists from 75 submissions received through open call.  Then, in keeping with Sugar Hill's educational philosophy that prizes the natural intelligence of young children, the finalists led art workshops at the Sugar Hill Museum Preschool for a group of four-year-olds, who voted on the artist they liked best.  Both stages weighed equally in the final selection.

In addition to David Shrobe (2015-2016), Derek Fordjour (2016-2017), Sugar Hill Children's Museum's artists-in-residence have included Damien Davis (2018-2019), Leslie Jimenez (2017-2018), Lina Puerta (2019-2020) and Dionis Ortiz (2021).

Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling, the cultural capstone of the Sugar Hill Project designed by architect Sir David Adjaye OBE provides our culturally rich neighborhood—home to the Harlem Renaissance—with a space where children and their families grow and learn about Sugar Hill, and about the world at large, through intergenerational dialogue with contemporary artists, art, and storytelling. Designed to nurture the curiosity and creative spirit of three- to eight-year-old children, the Museum provides opportunities to grow as both author and audience, as children engage with the work of accomplished artists and storytellers, and create and share their own. The Museum is a separate 501(c)(3) organization founded by and a program of Broadway Housing Communities. www.sugarhillmuseum.org

Broadway Housing Communities actively engages and supports the communities it serves through a unique supportive model that blends stable affordable housing, access to the arts, and early childhood education programs.  Since 1983, BHC has provided permanent homes for thousands of adults, children and families, high-quality early childhood programs that improve outcomes for resident and community children, and opportunities for local artists to exhibit their work and engage the community. The success of our model is rooted in community, and a commitment to ensuring that the adults, children, and families we serve receive the support they deserve to live independent, stable lives. www.broadwayhousing.org

SOURCE Sugar Hill Children's Museum of Art & Storytelling