Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’ States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Siren Arts’ States of Matter performances will run approximately 45 minutes and are open to all, free of charge. Audiences are encouraged to gather on Asbury Park’s 2nd Ave beach at 6:45pm, bringing beach towels or chairs for seating. In case of rain, please visit @sirenartsap on Instagram for rain location details.

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

A 1-800-DYKE Comics Reading featuring Tia and friends of the 1-800-DYKE. A select few comics from 1-800-DYKE will be projected slide by slide and read in front of an audience with original pages out for display.

The Exercises is a spring/summer peer mentorship program that Transformer launched in March 2004 to support a select group of DC area based artists at critical points or crossroads in their professional growth and development. Concentrating on a different artistic discipline each year of the program, the goal of the Exercises is to advance participating artists’ creative careers through rigorous peer artist mentorship.  

The structure of the Exercises is designed to help stimulate and encourage participating artists as they create new work. In addition to peer critique sessions, participating artists receive mentorship and critical feedback on their work, as well as professional development insights, by guest artists, curators, gallerists, and critics. 

For this 23rd year of the program, the Exercises will focus on illustration and comics. The mentorship program will consist of biweekly meetings on weekday evenings beginning Mid-March and running through the end of June. During the course of the mentorship sessions, the participating artists will both learn from invited peer mentors about best practices, as well as get insight on developing a work or project to be presented as part of a summer exhibition at Transformer. The culminating exhibition will take place July 25 and run through September 5, 2026.  

E23: DWIGHTMESS Comic Lab will be led by Adam Dwight Griffiths, a DMV based Cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and community leader, as well as the Founder and Director of  DWIGHTMESS, a comics compound based in Silver Spring, MD, with support from Camille DeSanto, Transformer’s Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator.

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’ States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Siren Arts’ States of Matter performances will run approximately 45 minutes and are open to all, free of charge. Audiences are encouraged to gather on Asbury Park’s 2nd Ave beach at 6:45pm, bringing beach towels or chairs for seating. In case of rain, please visit @sirenartsap on Instagram for rain location details.

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’ States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Siren Arts’ States of Matter performances will run approximately 45 minutes and are open to all, free of charge. Audiences are encouraged to gather on Asbury Park’s 2nd Ave beach at 6:45pm, bringing beach towels or chairs for seating. In case of rain, please visit @sirenartsap on Instagram for rain location details.

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

Join Art Hondros, the creator behind the Dot comic book series for an artist talk that will explore project inspiration, research, creative process, and how stories can be altered from biopic to fiction.

The Exercises is a spring/summer peer mentorship program that Transformer launched in March 2004 to support a select group of DC area based artists at critical points or crossroads in their professional growth and development. Concentrating on a different artistic discipline each year of the program, the goal of the Exercises is to advance participating artists’ creative careers through rigorous peer artist mentorship.  

The structure of the Exercises is designed to help stimulate and encourage participating artists as they create new work. In addition to peer critique sessions, participating artists receive mentorship and critical feedback on their work, as well as professional development insights, by guest artists, curators, gallerists, and critics. 

For this 23rd year of the program, the Exercises will focus on illustration and comics. The mentorship program will consist of biweekly meetings on weekday evenings beginning Mid-March and running through the end of June. During the course of the mentorship sessions, the participating artists will both learn from invited peer mentors about best practices, as well as get insight on developing a work or project to be presented as part of a summer exhibition at Transformer. The culminating exhibition will take place July 25 and run through September 5, 2026.  

E23: DWIGHTMESS Comic Lab will be led by Adam Dwight Griffiths, a DMV based Cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and community leader, as well as the Founder and Director of  DWIGHTMESS, a comics compound based in Silver Spring, MD, with support from Camille DeSanto, Transformer’s Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator.

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

Transformer celebrates the 10th year of its Siren Arts Summer Artist Residency Program & Public Performance Art Series in Asbury Park, NJ by highlighting diaspora, immigrant, and 1st generation US citizen artists. Presented in tandem with, and sharing the title, States of Matter - a sound & sculptural installation by Philadelphia based artist Raúl Romero on view at Siren Arts exhibition space - Siren Arts’ 2026 summer residency program artists and their performance art works explore how culture and language traverse a diversity of physical and metaphorical waters.

Exploring themes of identity, our bodies as vessels of spatial and political inquiry, labor, rituals of healing, the wisdom of nature and our interconnectedness with all living things, ecology, memories, and spiritualities: the participating Siren Arts’ States of Matter artists incorporate elements of performance art - a time-based visual art form where artists use their own bodies, actions, and presence as the primary medium - to build connection and understanding within themselves, and with the communities they engage with their work.

This summer’s roster of superbly innovative and visionary artists was selected for States of Matter through a curatorial collaboration with Art in Odd Places (AiOP), the independent New York City project renowned for placing experimental visual and performance art into unexpected public spaces. Special thanks to AiOP Founder and Director Ed Woodham (and Siren Arts alumnus), and to Arantxa Araujo and Pancho López, co-curators of AiOP 2026: UTOPIAS, the 21st edition, taking place September 26–27, 12-5pm along 14th Street in New York City. artinoddplaces.org

Siren Arts’ States of Matter performances will run approximately 45 minutes and are open to all, free of charge. Audiences are encouraged to gather on Asbury Park’s 2nd Ave beach at 6:45pm, bringing beach towels or chairs for seating. In case of rain, please visit @sirenartsap on Instagram for rain location details.

Special thanks to the City of Asbury Park for their continued support of this unique public art program!

It doesn’t take much to tell your story, even with just a folded piece of paper! Join illustrator Yuki Clarke in learning how to make your own comic zine and the story structures you can use to tell a narrative in just 8 tiny pages.

The Exercises is a spring/summer peer mentorship program that Transformer launched in March 2004 to support a select group of DC area based artists at critical points or crossroads in their professional growth and development. Concentrating on a different artistic discipline each year of the program, the goal of the Exercises is to advance participating artists’ creative careers through rigorous peer artist mentorship.  

The structure of the Exercises is designed to help stimulate and encourage participating artists as they create new work. In addition to peer critique sessions, participating artists receive mentorship and critical feedback on their work, as well as professional development insights, by guest artists, curators, gallerists, and critics. 

For this 23rd year of the program, the Exercises will focus on illustration and comics. The mentorship program will consist of biweekly meetings on weekday evenings beginning Mid-March and running through the end of June. During the course of the mentorship sessions, the participating artists will both learn from invited peer mentors about best practices, as well as get insight on developing a work or project to be presented as part of a summer exhibition at Transformer. The culminating exhibition will take place July 25 and run through September 5, 2026.  

E23: DWIGHTMESS Comic Lab will be led by Adam Dwight Griffiths, a DMV based Cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and community leader, as well as the Founder and Director of  DWIGHTMESS, a comics compound based in Silver Spring, MD, with support from Camille DeSanto, Transformer’s Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator.

This 90 minute workshop explores the potential of sequential art as a collaborative process of response and connection. Beginning from marks and patterns created from a partner, participants will pair up to create an interpretive zine, enfolding into a project of collective authorship unique to this group and moment.

The Exercises is a spring/summer peer mentorship program that Transformer launched in March 2004 to support a select group of DC area based artists at critical points or crossroads in their professional growth and development. Concentrating on a different artistic discipline each year of the program, the goal of the Exercises is to advance participating artists’ creative careers through rigorous peer artist mentorship.  

The structure of the Exercises is designed to help stimulate and encourage participating artists as they create new work. In addition to peer critique sessions, participating artists receive mentorship and critical feedback on their work, as well as professional development insights, by guest artists, curators, gallerists, and critics. 

For this 23rd year of the program, the Exercises will focus on illustration and comics. The mentorship program will consist of biweekly meetings on weekday evenings beginning Mid-March and running through the end of June. During the course of the mentorship sessions, the participating artists will both learn from invited peer mentors about best practices, as well as get insight on developing a work or project to be presented as part of a summer exhibition at Transformer. The culminating exhibition will take place July 25 and run through September 5, 2026.  

E23: DWIGHTMESS Comic Lab will be led by Adam Dwight Griffiths, a DMV based Cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and community leader, as well as the Founder and Director of  DWIGHTMESS, a comics compound based in Silver Spring, MD, with support from Camille DeSanto, Transformer’s Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator.

Illustrator Adam Griffiths will lead an introductory lesson to flip book animation, sharing samples from his own collection, outlining several basic techniques for simulating movement in sequence, and tools for best practices.

The Exercises is a spring/summer peer mentorship program that Transformer launched in March 2004 to support a select group of DC area based artists at critical points or crossroads in their professional growth and development. Concentrating on a different artistic discipline each year of the program, the goal of the Exercises is to advance participating artists’ creative careers through rigorous peer artist mentorship.  

The structure of the Exercises is designed to help stimulate and encourage participating artists as they create new work. In addition to peer critique sessions, participating artists receive mentorship and critical feedback on their work, as well as professional development insights, by guest artists, curators, gallerists, and critics. 

For this 23rd year of the program, the Exercises will focus on illustration and comics. The mentorship program will consist of biweekly meetings on weekday evenings beginning Mid-March and running through the end of June. During the course of the mentorship sessions, the participating artists will both learn from invited peer mentors about best practices, as well as get insight on developing a work or project to be presented as part of a summer exhibition at Transformer. The culminating exhibition will take place July 25 and run through September 5, 2026.  

E23: DWIGHTMESS Comic Lab will be led by Adam Dwight Griffiths, a DMV based Cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and community leader, as well as the Founder and Director of  DWIGHTMESS, a comics compound based in Silver Spring, MD, with support from Camille DeSanto, Transformer’s Exhibitions and Programs Coordinator.