Previous Artists
- Zakkiyyah Najeebah Dumas O’Neal—Fall 2021
- TJ Shin—Spring 2022
- Samuel Levi Jones—Fall 2022
- Hale Ekinci—Spring 2023
- Cindee Klement—Fall 2023
- Julie Schenkelberg—Spring 2024
Engaged Artist in Residence Program
zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o'neal
Fall 2021
In Fall 2021 zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o'neal served as the Cook Center's inaugural Engaged Artist-in-Residence. najeebah dumas o’neal is a Chicago-based visual artist, educator, and independent curator. Her work is most often initiated by personal and social histories related to family legacy, queerness, community making, and interiority.
Her practice borrows from visual traditions such as social portraiture, video assemblage, and vernacular found family sourced materials. Currently, her body of work prioritizes social relationships related to queerness, Black women’s identity formation, family, social architectures and the desire for connectedness.
zakkiyyah is also a co-founder of CBIM (Concerned Black Image Makers): a collective driven project that prioritizes shared experiences and concerns by lens based artists of the Black diaspora.
This Irrepressible Need to Fulfill Myself in Every Way Possible
During her residency, zakkiyyah najeebah dumas o'neal presented an exhibition of new photographic and videographic work in the Gayle Karch Cook Center's process gallery.