The Public Life of Your Practice

There is the tone with which we speak and the tone with which we write. The way we pitch work to a label or a brand looks nothing like the way we describe it to a foundation, an institution, or our own community, and the language of social media changes faster than any of us can track. How do we keep these all straight? What does it look like for all of these public lives of our practices to remain aligned, to grow, and to serve one another? In this 90-minute session we'll look at a few real examples of bios, statements and pitches that do this well (and some that don't), then turn to your own. Participants are invited to submit an artist statement, bio, press release or work-sample statement in advance; a handful will be workshopped live, with peers reading as the label, the funder, and the friend. Everyone leaves with a marked-up draft and a set of questions to take to the rest of their materials. Perhaps there’s even fun and a bit of artistic liberty to be had along the way.

Sustainable Practice Culture & Industry Presenting Your Work Writing

Instructor

Zain Alam

Dates

Sessions

1 session

Duration

90 mins each

Level

All levels

Language

English

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Zain Alam

Zain Alam (b. 1990) is an artist and composer of Hindustani origin born in Flushing, Queens and raised outside of Atlanta. His work emerges from a lifelong question: in what ways can sound convey the ineffable? He contemplates especially the distance between the effable in one language and what lies beyond translation to another. His recording project Humeysha began during his year working as an oral historian for 1947 Partition Archive. Across video, performance, and installation, sound remains the central organizing principle in Alam's practice, in addition to collaborations in film, sculpture, and design. Alam’s work has been featured in Hyperallergic, Vice, Village Voice, and the New York Times. His performances have been staged at the Rubin Foundation, Creative Time, and Center for Arts, Research and Alliances (CARA). His installations have been exhibited by the Laundromat Project, American Cultural Association of Morocco, and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. He completed his graduate work in Islamic studies at Harvard University. He is a spring 2026 MacDowell fellow and a 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Digital/Electronic Arts. His multi-channel installation work Meter & Light: Night was on view at The Shed as part of their summer 2025 Open Call exhibition. He will be conducting research in South Asia for the next installment of Meter & Light as a recipient of the 2026-2027 Creative Research Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He is the recipient of the Idle Hands Incubation Award and will be exhibiting his work-in-progress HOLY HANDS at Idle Hands December 11-13, 2026 in Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn, NY.

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Instructor Statement

Zain Alam is an artist of Hindustani origin whose interdisciplinary work explores the limits of translation and religious ritual as a site of the ineffable. He is 2026 MacDowell fellow, NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Digital/Electronic Arts, and recipient of the Idle Hands Incubation Award. He completed his graduate work in Islamic studies from Harvard University. WIth a career that has moved between the worlds of music, academia, and visual art, he is keenly attuned to matters of institutional visibility and how language can converge, diverge, yet always serve the core of an artistic narrative. In his work with hundreds of artist students over the past decade, he's come to appreciate the value of using narrative to signal possibility. The resume/CV, portfolio, press junket, artist statemement—rather than simply a laundry list of achievements, these are all pieces of a bigger jigsaw puzzle that can point towards momentum, and most importantly, direction.

FAQs

Do I need to submit materials to attend? Not necessarily! You are more than welcome to join at whatever step of the narrative process you might be in. I'm a musician, not a writer — is this for me? Absolutely! Much of our work here will push against the idea that musicians or artists cannot write–writing can be simple, clear, true to our voice, and most importantly, the process of clarifying our thinking to share with potential collaborators and partners. Does this work for non-English materials? The session will be held in English, but the lessons here are applicable across languages and contexts. Will there be a recording? Yes! The recording link will be provided afterwards to attendees.