Terrain is led by a group of artists, educators, and community builders dedicated to bringing contemporary art to everyday places
Board of Directors
-
Co-President
Bhagya Ajaikumar is an artist, professor and art administrator based in India and the United States. She is a Visiting Faculty at the Department of Visual Arts at Bangalore University. Ms. Ajaikumar has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. Being a Board Member of Terrain Exhibitions, she has invited artists from India and the US to participate in the Terrain Biennial 2021.She is the Founder Director of the Swasti Contemporary Art Gallery in Bangalore housed in an Oncology Center. Ms. Ajaikumar and her husband Dr. B.S. Ajaikumar, Chairman of HCG Group of Hospitals and as Directors of Bharath Hospital & Institute of Oncology in Mysore, established the International Human Development Upliftment Academy (IHDUA), an NGO since 1993, with a vision to provide education and empowerment programs for rural women and children.
-
Vice President
Tom Burtonwood (b. United Kingdom) is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist, curator and educator and Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through sculpture, drawing and video Burtonwood explores patterns, systems and mechanisms. He/they hold an MFA from Southern Illinois University (USA) and a BA from Loughborough College of Art (UK). Burtonwood is co-founder of Chicago based creative studio, Happy Returns and a member of the international art collective videokaffe. He/they have curated over twenty exhibitions of contemporary art working with Chicago-based artist-run galleries GARDENfresh (2002 - 2009) and What It Is (2010 - 2015). Recent venues presenting Burtonwood's work include The Donut Shop, Chicago; Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago; DesignLab Gallery, Pasadena, CA; Dock 6, Chicago, IL; Monaco, St. Louis, MO; Platform, Evanston; Riverside Art Center, Riverside, IL; CICA Museum Gyeonggi-do, Korea; DEMO Project, Springfield, IL; Terrain Biennial 2017, Oak Park, IL.
tomburtonwood.com | @tomburtonwood
-
Development Committee Chair
Erica (she/her) was an admirer of Terrain for years before getting involved with the Development committee in 2022. Terrain's ethos of increasing accessibility of art and fostering creativity in communities is close to her heart. A Speech-Language Pathologist by trade, Erica also serves as the President of a nonprofit, CAYR Connections, which aims to provide neuro-affirming resources to individuals and families in the Chicago area. Erica lives in Oak Park with her husband, Cody, and their goofy Greyhound mix, Bowie.
-
Communications Committee Chair
Rusty Cook is a multidisciplinary designer, artist and art director with a history of building mission-driven brands across the arts + culture, non-profit, and tech industries. In their personal practice, they’ve dabbled in everything from physical theater to wooden toy design. Their work has been shown at the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Lost Arts, and Rainbo Club. They’ve performed at the Neo-Futurarium, Salonathon, Links Hall, the High Line (NYC), and in their own living room.
A lifelong Chicagoan, Rusty lives in Humboldt Park with their partner and two dogs, Tink and Cricket.
rustydesignco.com | @rustyandtink
-
Charlie Roderick works as an educator, artist, and photographer. He currently holds a position as Associate Professor of Art at Harper College where he heads the digital components of its Department of Art and Design. This includes, but is not limited to, the development of both digital art and digital photography courses. Previous to his position at Harper College, Charlie was a lecturer with the Art and Art History Department at the University of Denver, where he taught 2D/3D Approaches, Concepts, Open Media Studio, and Net Art and Design. He received his BFA in Photography from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and an MFA in Photography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 2004 he has been working collaboratively with Josh Ippel on a project called Hideous Beast, exhibiting nationally and internationally. His artwork crosses disciplines and critically engages in art discourse with an emphasis on collaborative practices, group work, and participatory cultural production.
charlieroderick.com
-
Jonah Radeke is a poet, photographer, and museum educator living in Chicago. They currently work as a Senior Coordinator of Education at the Adler Planetarium, where their work focuses on developing audience-centered programs and supporting the education and interpretation team. Prior to this role, they worked as a Gallery Operations Assistant at Wrightwood 659. They hold a BA in Art History and English from DePaul University, and they’re also a member of Poems While You Wait, a collective of typewriter poets who write on demand at events around Chicago.
-
Co-President
Tallulah Cartalucca is an artist, writer, educator, arts administrator, and tree lover from Chicago, IL. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fibers and Material Studies and Visual Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023. Tallulah currently works as a teacher and the assistant to the director of youth programs at Lillstreet Art Center. The neighborly spirit of Chicago inspires her to foster connections and strengthen bonds between artists and their communities. She curated Overstreet Art+Music (2022), and has recent work shown with Roman Susan, Abracadabra Press, Propagate Cooperative, No Nation Art Lab, SITE Galleries, SAIC Galleries, Lillstreet Art Center, and 21Minus at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
tallulahcartalucca.com | @tallulahcartalucca
-
2023 Biennial Program Committee Co-Chair
Stephanie makes photos and films addressing the themes of relationships, subcultures, and social class. She has held solo exhibitions at the boundary (Chicago), the University of Illinois Gallery (Springfield), and Terrain! Her group exhibitions include the University of Chicago: Arts and Public Life, The Silver Room, Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), and the CICA Museum in South Korea. She graduated from Columbia College Chicago. Expanding on her fascination with the human experience, Stephanie also hosts a podcast noseyAF talking to artists, activists, and anyone else who will speak to her about the who, what, and why of what they do in their lives. Also, fun fact Stephanie prides herself on her endless knowledge and enjoyment of The Real Housewives franchise.
-
2023 Biennial Program Committee Co-Chair
Stevie Imuakalani Cisneros Hanley is a bastard child of colonialism, of mixed Kanaka Maoli indigenous Hawaiian, Mexican, Irish and Punjabi heritage. Their work investigates the body as spill, miscegenation, identity as contradiction, psychic pollution, Intergenerational trauma and healing. Stevie Cisneros Hanley teaches in the department of Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, specializing in decolonizing color theory. They have had solo shows at the International Museum of Surgical Science, University Club of Chicago, Center of Endless Progress Berlin and M LeBlanc Gallery. Hanley has participated in numerous international exhibitions including Tüyup, Istanbul; Artist House Jerusalem, Jerusalem; La Mama Galeria, New York City; Lodos Contemporary, Mexico City; Julius Caesar Chicago; September, Berlin; NADA Miami; Iceberg Projects, Chicago; and CANARY, Los Angeles. Stevie worked as curatorial assistant at Schwules Museum, Berlin from 2006-2010, founded the unapologetically queer arts collective, The Condo Association, and curated numerous independent exhibitions including The Devil is a Loser and Heʻs My Bitch, Galerier Studio St. St., Berlin, Signs of Guilt and Shame, Wesley House, Berkeley, California, and Gødbottom, Inferno, New York and Condo Association Chicago.
-
Secretary
Nancy Gildart uses research, textile processes, mapping, and humor in projects with commemorative and relational themes. She also participates in crowd-sourced textile actions–currently sewing quilts for new immigrants for Welcome Blanket. She earned an MFA (2000) and a BFA (1998) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a founding director of SAIC’s student gallery program (now called SITE) as well as serving on SAIC’s Exhibitions and Events committee. Since 2019 she has served as a trustee on the Homewood (IL) Library Board.She has 20+ years of coaching students and alums on fellowship proposals and other professional activities and materials. She also has an MA in Library Science from University of Chicago and a BA in Literature from University of Michigan’s Residential College. She has shown work most recently in Loo Space at Slow (Chicago) and Residential College Art Gallery (Ann Arbor).
-
Sarah Aziz is an interdisciplinary designer and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of New Mexico. Her background as a second-generation British Pakistani informs her research practice that maps patterns of migration across multiple scales and geographies. Currently, she is working with collaborators from across the Great Plains to tag, track, and build with tumbleweeds because they defy human-made borders and ask new questions of indigeneity and invasiveness. Her drawing work has been featured in AD Magazine, Architect Magazine, Soiled, POOL, and CLOG. Most recently, she was awarded an ACSA Course Development Prize in Architecture, Climate Change, and Society, with Lindsey Krug to study the 18,200+ extra-ordinary Dollar General stores in America.
She is a recipient of MacDowell and UW-Milwaukee Fitzhugh Scott Innovation in Design Fellowships and has held Visiting Professorships at the University of Colorado Denver as the inaugural Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture with an Emphasis on Issues of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Texas Tech University.
-
Born and raised in “DC proper,” A.J. McClenon studied art and creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, and The New School prior to receiving a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Alongside artistic experiences, A.J. is passionate about teaching and community collaborations with the goal that all the memories and histories that are said to have “too many Black people,” are told and retold again. As a means to uphold these stories A.J. creates writings, performances, installations, objects, sounds, and visuals. These creations often revolve around an interest in water and aquatic life, escapism, Blackness, science, grief, US history, and the global future. A.J. is deeply invested in leveling the hierarchies of truth and using personal narrative to speak on political and cultural amnesia and their absurdities. A.J. currently works and lives in Chicago.