New Ma's House Podcast episode! In this conversation, we sit down with Bonny Melendez to talk about the ways photography can hold family history, migration, identity, and cultural memory. Bonny reflects on growing up in Queens in a close Peruvian matriarchal family, discovering later that her father was also a photographer, and how those connections continue to shape her portraits and self-portraits. We also talk about how her background in psychology informs the care, collaboration, and trust she brings to photographing others, especially members of her own family.

Bonny also shares how her practice is expanding beyond photography into fashion, beauty, movement, poetry, video, and performance. During her residency at Ma's House, she created new self-portrait work inspired by Marinera, a traditional Peruvian dance, while thinking through her relationship with her mother, her body, and her own voice. We discuss solitude, collaboration, cultural storytelling, and the importance of making work that feels grounded in lived experience. Bonny describes her time at Ma's House as an affirming moment that helped her more fully embrace herself as an artist and imagine what might come next between New York and New Mexico.

In this Ma's House episode, we speak with artist and engineer Cole Douglas about his multidisciplinary practice spanning abstract painting, photography, poetry, video, and printmaking. Cole reflects on his transition from college football and mechanical engineering into art, which emerged as a necessary outlet for healing, emotional expression, and responding to the social upheaval of 2020. He discusses his guiding principle of "process, not progress," the role of writing and experimentation in developing new bodies of work, and his ongoing exploration of Black identity, nature, memory, and humanity's relationship with the environment.

Cole also reflects on his residency at Ma's House, where he experimented with printmaking, led a poetry workshop inspired by the ocean, and learned more about Shinnecock history and relationships with the surrounding shoreline. He shares how time in nature, conversations with fellow artists, and participation in community workshops expanded his thinking about climate change, migration, and material history. The conversation also touches on mentorship, defining success on one's own terms, finding joy through creativity and dancing, and his developing interest in using oyster-shell tabby to connect his South Carolina roots with family migration stories and the coastal histories of New York.

Host Jeremy Dennis interviews Yooyeon Nam, a Korean-born, New York–based painter (BFA Pratt Institute, 2023) whose oil and acrylic works explore alienation, cultural displacement, and existential unease through dreamlike, bold palettes and invented round-faced, often noseless figures with downcast or pupil-less eyes. Nam describes her maximalist compositions as entertainment with hidden "secrets," explains developing anonymous characters from frequent figure drawing, and discusses influences including Korean Buddhist sculpture, existential philosophy, and Matisse. She connects missing noses and changing eyes to suffocation, shyness, and differences in eye contact between Korea and New York, and explains balancing pain, violence, and cuteness to make difficult themes bearable. The conversation covers her process, color improvisation, Ma's House residency work in acrylic, relationship challenges, business-study lessons about audience, future themes of irrecoverable loss in a changing world, and where to find interviews and her work online.

Laeticia Keok on Poetry as Attention, Intimacy, and Collective Responsibility | Ma's House Podcast

Jeremy Dennis, lead artist of Ma's House, interviews January 2026 artist-in-residence Laeticia Keok, a Singaporean writer and editor based in New York City whose work considers grief care, borders, and collective responsibility. Keok shares how she moved from voracious reading and fiction to contemporary poetry, and how honesty on the page helps her process personal and political realities. She describes a COVID-era shift toward poetry as attention and witnessing, her practice of note-taking, and writing associatively from small moments like kelp farming and Shinnecock Bay "Hope Spots." They discuss intimacy, loneliness, vulnerability, confessional risk, and ethical citation and naming as community practice, as well as grief circles and her Ma's House workshop "You Are the One I Love." Keok reflects on distance, nation, and replicated systems across borders, previews a New York reading, and discusses finishing her poetry collection.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
01:16 Becoming a Poet
02:51 Honesty on the Page
03:36 Poetry as Attention
06:17 Notes to Poems
08:01 Intimacy and Politics
10:34 Publishing and Readers
11:48 Grief and Distance
13:28 Two Homes and Freedom
16:08 Risk and Confession
19:07 Grief Circles in Community
20:58 Influence and Citation
24:42 Editing and Authorship
26:37 Residency at Ma's House
30:37 Workshop Reflections
32:29 Letters to the Departed
34:42 Whats Next in 2026
37:35 Follow and Closing

In this episode, we speak with July 2025 Resident Artist XY Zhou. XY Zhou (they/them) is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in New York City whose work spans writing, painting, ceramics, textiles, and design. Their practice investigates the transmission of cultural traditions across generations, geographies, and mediums. They currently contribute to Phoenix House NY|LI's Art of Advocacy program, facilitating art workshops and exhibitions. XY's work has been exhibited at various NYC venues and has been supported by institutions such as NYU Gallatin and the Bobby Anspach Memorial Foundation. Their past honors include fellowships from Jiggle n' Juice, Newington-Cropsey Foundation, FabNYC, and a current grant from the Asian American Arts Alliance. They are also a member of the publishing collective Active Chapter, which supports local artists through printed media. XY is driven by boundless curiosity and a desire for lasting impact.

In this Ma's House podcast, we hear from Ma's House alumni artist Ella Mahoney. Ella is a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), an artist, illustrator, and teacher. She received her BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts and an MA in Art Education from Pratt Institute.

Her work has been featured in galleries and performances across the United States, including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Southampton Arts Center, and Invisible Exports. She has also illustrated multiple children's books for the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project.

Mahoney's painting techniques encompass the use of oil and acrylic mediums, as well as the art of silk painting. Her work is centered around storytelling and draws inspiration from creation stories, as well as from her personal experiences of indigeneity through the lens of love and nature.

In this podcast episode, Jeremy Dennis, lead artist of Ma's House and BIPOC Art Studio, converses with resident artist William PK Carter. William details their creative process, emphasizing themes of self-recognition, transformation, and various marginalized identities. They share insights on their debut puppet show, 'First Buds of the Garden', and its symbolic elements. William also discusses their inspirations, family support, and upcoming projects, including the 'Beautiful Without Consequence' puppet theater piece. The conversation underscores the importance of authenticity and community in artistic expression.

In this episode of the Ma's House podcast, host Jeremy Dennis speaks with Joshua Allen, the May 2025 resident artist at Ma's House, about their multifaceted career as an artist, community organizer, writer, and public speaker. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Joshua has been an active voice in the arts and activism scene since 2014, passionately advocating for LGBTQIA+ and people of color communities. The conversation explores Joshua's recent two-week residency at Ma's House, where they engaged in creative practices, including a public artist talk and a performance titled 'Waves and Meditation,' delving into themes of ancestral memory, queerness, diaspora, and healing. Joshua shares insights into their artistic process, the importance of rest, and how different environments impact their work. They also discuss the use of performance as a form of activism and the role of stillness and presence in their art. Future projects, including international performances and a year-long residency focused on a mentorship program, are also highlighted. The episode underscores Joshua's vision of a more just, equitable, and joyous world through art and community engagement.