The Socrates Annual 2025: Up/Rooted
The Socrates Annual 2025: Up/Rooted
EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE 8 (works deinstalled between April 27 – June 10).
Artist Fellows
Natalia Nakazawa, Pioneers Go East Collective, Rowan Renee, Catherine Telford-Keogh*, Zipporah Camille Thompson
RELATED EVENTS | ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP
The Socrates Annual 2025 exhibition is the culmination of Socrates Sculpture Park’s fellowship program, awarded to artists selected through an Open Call. Since 2001, the fellowship program has supported early career artists who receive financial and technical support to realize ambitious public artworks to be included in a park-wide exhibition.
The 2025 Artist Fellows Natalia Nakazawa, Pioneers Go East Collective, Rowan Renee, Catherine Telford-Keogh, and Zipporah Camille Thompson responded to the theme “Up/rooted,” which explores the complexities of uprooting species for long-term sustainability and resilience. The term “uprooted” evokes the tension between dislocation and resilience. “Up” signifies the act of lifting away, while “root” refers to the hidden systems below the ground—anchoring life and absorbing essential nutrients. This duality invites us to reflect on the implications of relocation and adaptation, exploring how when done thoughtfully it can foster new growth and understanding. In what ways can we foster regeneration while acknowledging and mitigating the losses within our ecological and social landscapes? How might we navigate the delicate balance between ecological preservation and community needs to create a more resilient future?
In addition to sculpture and installation, the Socrates Annual Fellowship presents performance and community-driven programming. These multi-disciplinary approaches to the theme creatively engage overlooked areas of the Park, inviting an upward gaze—into the trees, and overhead. How might lifting your eyes to the canopy and sky reveal connections between the unseen, nourishing systems underground and the expansive possibilities above? “As above, so below…”
*Catherine Telford-Keoghis the 2025 Devra Freelander Artist Fellow
Related Events
More Performance and Public Program events will be announced.
Opening Celebration: The Socrates Annual 2025 x Annual Artist Picnic —>
The Socrates Annual 2025
Friday, September 12, 2025
Experience the new works of our 2025 Fellows! These five site-specific projects–spanning sculpture, performance, and social practice–respond to the theme Up/rooted. Through diverse approaches, these works explore the complexities of relocation and adaptation, as well as the delicate balance between ecological preservation and community needs in pursuit of a more resilient future. Join us for an opening celebration featuring activations and performances by the Artist Fellows.
About the Fellowship
The Socrates Annual 2025 Artist Fellows were selected from over 300 applicants by a selection committee that included Elena Ketelsen González, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1; Bel Falleiros, Socrates Fellow, 2020, along with Socrates Sculpture Park staff members Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, Curator & Director of Exhibitions; Richard Morales, Director of Public Programs & Community Engagement.
Each Artist Fellow is awarded a $8,000 production grant, $2,000 honorarium, and seven-days-a-week access to the resources and fabrication facilities of the Park’s outdoor artist studio to realize their proposed project. The Fellowship was formalized in 2000 and has included artists such as Sable Elyse Smith (2016), David Brooks (2009), Leilah Babirye (2018), Orly Genger (2004), Sanford Biggers (2001), and Torkwase Dyson (2015).
Learn more about the open call process HERE>>>
Support
Support for The Socrates Annual exhibition and fellowship is provided by Charina Endowment Fund, the Sidney E. Frank Foundation, Devra Freelander Artist Fund, Agnes Gund, and Lambent Foundation, with in-kind support provided by Spacetime C.C.
Funding is also provided in part, by public funds from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council.
Image: 2023 Artist Fellow at Socrates Sculpture Park Studio, 2023. Photo Credit: Joyce S. Chan