Asia Stewart
Asia Stewart (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based performance artist whose conceptual work centers the body as a living archive. After receiving degrees in the social sciences from Cambridge and Harvard University, she has sought ways to transform the language specific to studies of race, gender, sexuality, and diaspora into materials that can be felt and worn on the body. As a National YoungArts Winner in Musical Theatre and a former National Arts Policy Roundtable Fellow with Americans for the Arts, Stewart uses her past experiences on stage to inject her work with a heightened sense of theatricality. In 2020, Stewart concluded her first independent performance series, Graft, which attempts to capture the violence that constructions of whiteness and femininity wrought on Black bodies. Works from that series have been showcased at venues such as the Mercury Store, Untitled Space, NARS Foundation, Goodyear Arts, A.I.R. Gallery, Kellen Gallery, and Anthology Film Archives. One piece was also recently acquired by the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Stewart will continue to develop new works in 2022 and 2023 with the support of the Brooklyn Arts Fund and A.I.R. Fellowship.