In Residence: January 26 - March 22, 2026
Welcome Dinner: Thursday, January 29, 2026, from 6-8 PM
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 19, 2026, from 6-9 PM
(SAN ANTONIO, January 21, 2026) – Artpace San Antonio is pleased to officially announce the Spring 2026 International Artists-in-Residence. Our Spring 2026 Guest Curator, Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, has selected Violette Bule (Houston, Texas), Mel Chin (Burnsville, North Carolina), and Việt Lê (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). The residency will bring together three visionary practitioners whose work spans conceptual documentary practice, environmental activism, and healing ritual.
The Spring 2026 resident artists will begin their residency on January 26, 2026, with a Welcome Dinner on Thursday, January 29, 2026, from 6-8 PM. Their exhibitions will open to the public from March 19 to July 12, 2026.
Violette Bule is a conceptual artist whose work combines archival research with community engagement. After training in photography in Mexico City, she earned her MFA in Studio Art from the University of Houston.
Using documentary methods and participatory fieldwork, she examines the dynamics of power and collective memory. Recent exhibitions include La Bienal Poli/Gráfica de Puerto Rico y el Caribe: Bajo Presión (San Juan, 2024), Day Jobs (Stanford Cantor Arts Center & Blanton Museum, 2023–24), Echo Chamber (Transart Foundation, 2020), and Round 57: Southern Survey Biennial II (Houston, 2024).
She received the 2023 Horton/Artadia Award and was supported by the Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs in Houston. She has held residencies at Cornell University (2022) and Visual Art Center, UT Austin (2024), following fellowships with Soma Summer (2014) and Tokyo Art Space (2012–13). Her monograph De la Lleca al Cohue—born from prison workshops (2010–12)—was named July 2024 Book of the Month by the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation.
Mel Chin employs a wide range of approaches, from unique, idiosyncratic objects to operations that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork. He insists that projects in the public field are dosed with a rigorous pragmatism and an elevated poetic. Studio work is without a signature style, resulting in works suffused with a deeply considered restraint or excess to promote an unpredictable aesthetic.
His work, Revival Field (1990), pioneered "green remediation," the use of plants to remove toxic heavy metals from soil. From 1995 to 1998, he formed the GALA Committee, a collective that produced In the Name of the Place, a public art project conducted on American prime-time television. His nationwide initiative Fundred gave tangible form and political value to the voices of 500,000 individuals opposed to the conditions that give rise to childhood lead poisoning. He founded S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio (2017) to both expand the dialogue and sustain engagement with the community and the environment. In 2018, he presented Unmoored and Wake in Times Square, New York City, creating a visual portal into a future of rising waters, and concurrently had a 40-year survey exhibition at the Queens Museum, NYC.
He is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (2019), election to The American Academy of Arts and Letters (2021), and the 12th winner of the Hiroshima Art Prize (2024).
Việt Lê's creative and critical practice as a queer, disabled artist focuses on sexualities, spiritualities—the physical and the metaphysical. Their hybrid projects encompass experimental film, ritual performance, "pain-tings", power objects/installations, and text towards healing.
Dr. Lê is the author of Return Engagements (Duke University Press, 2021, which received the 2023 Outstanding Book Award in Media and Visual Culture from the Association of Asian American Studies, and collaborated with Latipa on the art book White Gaze (Sming Sming Books | Candor Art, 2019).
Việt Lê is Professor Emeritus at California College of the Arts (former Chair, Visual & Critical Studies graduate program). They are a 2022-24 Headlands Bay Area Fellow and '22 Stanford CCSRE Mellon Arts Fellow. Lê has presented their work at the Shanghai Biennale, Rio Gay Film Festival, the Smithsonian, and other venues. Lê's recent solo shows include thường (with Ly Hoàng Ly, 2025, University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech), đến đèn đen (2024, sàn art | Saigon), and Việt Namaste (2023, Headlands Center for the Arts).
Focused on global south indigenous shamanisms and knowledge traditions, Lê's non-profit foundation, SEA sạ, seeks to share resources and wisdom among artists, healers, and researchers. Rooted in Southeast Asian cosmologies, Lê continues their training and practice as a Vietnamese indigenous shaman-monk through various mediums.
Important Dates
The Artist Welcome Dinner will be held on Thursday, January 29, from 6-8 PM. The artists will give a public presentation featuring images of their practice, discuss their past work, and possibly share plans for their Artpace residency. Liberty Bar will provide a main dish, and we ask the public to bring their favorite side dish or dessert for eight people to share. Doors will open at 6 PM, and presentations begin at 6:30 PM. This event is free and an opportunity to meet and talk to the artists about their work.
The Exhibition Opening & Artist Talk will take place on Thursday, March 19, from 6-9 PM. Artpace Guest Curator Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander will return to San Antonio and lead a dialogue with the three artists at 6:30 PM in our Hudson Showroom. The artist talk will be live-streamed on Artpace’s Facebook account.
During their residency, each artist will host a Community Collaboration, offering opportunities to connect with the public while at Artpace. Community Collaborations may range from workshops or lectures to studio visits, film screenings, or performances.
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The Artpace International Artist-in-Residence program is made possible through generous annual support from the Sarah E Harte and John S Gutzler Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, The Parker Foundation, Isabel Howard, the Jeanie Rabke Wyatt Family Foundation, the Howard and Betty Halff Charitable Fund, Johnny Clay Johnson, Guillermo Nicolas and Jim Foster, The Smothers Foundation, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
Ongoing support of Artpace’s exhibitions and programs is generously provided by the City of San Antonio, Department of Arts and Culture, The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Texas Commission on the Arts, H-E-B, and a grant from the following funds of the San Antonio Area Foundation: John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation, Beulah M. and Felix J. Katz Memorial Trust, Ruth Lang Charitable Fund, E. B. Loch Charitable Fund, Dan and Gloria Oppenheimer Fund, Frances Margaret Seaver Fund, Valley View Trust, and the Becky "Beck" Whitehead Memorial Fund. Artpace is grateful to be the recipient of a generous grant from the Ruth Foundation for the Arts.
About Artpace
Artpace San Antonio is a nonprofit residency program that supports Texas, national, and international artists in the creation of new art. As a catalyst for artistic expression, we engage local communities through global art practices and experiences. To date, Artpace has welcomed 289 artists through its renowned International Artist-in-Residence Program.
Annually, Artpace hosts two residencies. Each features one Texas-based, one national, and one international artist, selected by a notable guest curator. Each eight-week residency culminates in a four-month exhibition on-site. The mission of this program is to provide artists with unparalleled resources to experiment with new ideas and take provocative risks.