about






BULK SPACE is a collective dedicated to uplifting the works of marginalized artists in taking up physical and digital space.

We understand first hand the needs of marginalized artists and are committed to building platforms for success via community conversation, exhibitions, and performance in which we identify and develop resources for all of our participants.




bios


Executive Director

Jessica Allie

is a detroit based curator, arts facilitator, and founder of Shylo Arts. Currently, she is the Detroit Director for ProjectArt, a free youth arts education and artists residency held in several Detroit Public Libraries. She also sits on the board for Zimbabwe Culture Center Detroit which creates international conversation surrounding similarities between Detroit and Zim through arts, music, and conversation. As a native Detroiter she has worked with many cultural institutions such as the National Conference of Artists, Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Red Bull Arts Detroit, ApexArt, and Contemporary&. Her main focus is exploring how the arts continue to act as a means of cultural preservation among change.


Program Director

Jova Lynne 

is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist and curator based out of Detroit, MI of Jamaican and Colombian heritage born and raised in New York City. Lynne graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA in 2010 with a Bachelors of Arts in Video Art and Education. She has worked at the Museum of Moving Image in Queens, NY as well as the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA. Lynne is a grantee of the Astraea Foundation's Global Arts Fund, which has supported her work on media based projects in Kingston, Jamaica and Berlin, Germany in addition to her work in Detroit. As a co-founder of both BULK SPACE and Black Artists Meetup-Detroit, Lynne is dedicated to creating space for artists to offer each other support, and address their needs. Lynne moved to Detroit in 2015 to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts in Photography at Cranbrook Academy of Art which she completed in May of 2017. She is currently the Susanne Feld Hilberry Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. 


Operations Manager

Clare Gatto

earned a BFA from Ohio State State University (2012) and an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2017), in the interim they co-founded MINT collective, a collaborative, multidisciplinary artist-run space in Columbus, OH. A recipient of the Mercedes Benz Financial Service New Beginnings Award (2017) and the Warren and Margot Coville Scholarship  (2017), they attended Vermont Studio Center and ACRE artist residencies in 2018 and will be attending Seljavegur residency in Reykjavik, Iceland in fall 2019. Their artist book Good Side, published with New Archive, is in the collection of Cranbrook Academy of Art Library and the Whitney Museum of Art Library Special Collections.


Exhibtion and Project Coordinator
Sara Nishikawa - Mostly Butter

was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. After completing her BA in Psychology at Loyola Marymount University and MA in Visual Arts at California State University Northridge, Sara moved to Michigan to pursue an MFA in Ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Arts. She completed her MFA in 2017 and currently lives and works in Detroit. She is the co-director of Tessellate Residency and Gallery as well as the director of Mostly Butter.


Communications Director 
Meg Kelley

is a multidisciplinary artist interested in the transformation of digital space to a private space. By building environments that deny physicality of objects that they create, Meg questions what we bring into the non-physical world and what stays behind. Their interest in the relationship between the digital and the physical was first realized while splitting their BFA at University of Cincinnati between photography and ceramics. This unique training in both digital and sculptural medias led their investigation to Cranbrook Academy of Art for an MFA in photography. Now based in Chicago, Meg continues their work and is a co-founder of Flex Collective and Bulk Space.




Studio Manager at Talking Dolls
Sarah Blanchette

is a photo and fiber based artist working out of Detroit, Michigan. Through repetitive acts of hand/machine sewing and physical manipulations of the self portrait, she documents her coming of age in a digital world while embarking on a journey towards growth and autonomy in womanhood. Blanchette holds a BA in Journalism and Studio Art Photography from Oakland University (‘15) and an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art (‘17).

Since establishing her studio practice in 2015, Blanchette has exhibited nationally and online in galleries, museums, zines, blogs, and artist run spaces. She is currently an Artist in Residence and Studio Coordinator/Curator at BULK SPACE in Detroit. Blanchette also co-curates the Instagram page @feministartmuseum, which features womxn artists creating work around identity, gender, race, and sexuality.





community partners




Talking Dolls
Room Project
Allied Media