Samaira Wilson moderated a discussion between Salome Asega and Ajay Kurian, two voices at the forefront of shaping creative infrastructure today, for Elephant.
Salome Asega is a new media artist who has recently been appointed Deputy Director of Strategy and Innovation at the New Museum, while continuing as Director of NEW INC. As an artist in a senior role and one of the youngest leaders of a major U.S. institution, Asega’s appointment signals a rethinking of how museums operate, placing incubator-led thinking, risk-taking, and cross-disciplinary work at the center of museum operations today.
Ajay Kurian is an artist, educator, and writer. He is the founder of NewCrits, a global platform for virtual studio mentorship for artists of all backgrounds and experience. His artwork has been shown internationally, including at the Fridericianum, Kassel; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Aishti Foundation, Lebanon, and many more.
Together, Salome and Ajay engaged in insightful conversations about the future of cross-disciplinary practice, how incubators and mentorship shape the next generation of artists, and where experimentation, innovation, and access intersect in the contemporary art ecosystem.
Samaira Wilson: Could you guys share a bit about how you know each other or how your paths crossed?
Salome Asega: Ajay and I go way back. I think we first met at a publishing event, right? It was a zine launch party for Unbag.
Ajay Kurian: Yeah, yeah, it was. I don’t even know how many years ago it was, but yeah, we hit it off and started hanging and closing down bars.
SW: So cool! And you guys are both artists. Did you guys go to each other’s shows? Were you doing things in the artist sphere or the institutional sphere together?
AK: To me, Salome was always a person that I was interested in talking to, for one, she’s just really fun to hang out with. I didn’t know her in a fully professionalized capacity, and it was later, seeing her boss up at NEW INC, that I was like–oh, shit, she’s like running everything–
SA: –she’s got a job.
AK: But, I didn’t know that side until later, so I think it was cooler to get to know each other as people and understand that we had similar values, and similar ways of understanding why we’re in this. Then, seeing what we both made and what our creative practices were, I was like, that’s what’s up.
SA: Yeah, that’s true. I’m tripping over this question because, I mean, of course I’ve seen your work. I’d gone early on in our friendship to your shows at 47 Canal. Obviously, I was a big fan of your work, but we never talked about our portfolios. It was more like; how do you see the world? What are you reading? What are you into? Just, yeah, nerding out.
AK: Yeah, nerding out in chunks.
SW: How have you guys found the journey of finding your place in the art world? That leads into a larger conversation about creative infrastructure as a whole, because what even is that? What’s your comfort spot in that?
SA: Well, you know, I feel like finding your place is ongoing. There are chapters to life, there are chapters to work. But I feel like I’m drawn to, and this is going to sound so woo woo, but like energy, right? I’ve always been led by my nose and driven by my own curiosity, and that’s brought me to great people. So, it was never about being in the right spaces, institutional spaces or organizations. It was about finding my people, and I think that’s probably what’s connected us for all this time. Ajay is right: we got locked in around ideas, a passion, and a vision we share for the future of the arts and culture in New York, but also the world at large. I think it’s never been about finding place; I guess it’s been about finding people.
AK: That’s perfectly put. I don’t think I can say it better. I think when I was younger it was a mixture – there were some more ego driven things that I was moving towards, like, “I need to be here. I want to achieve this and I want to achieve that.” As I’ve gotten older, the thing that’s always gratified me the most, and the thing that’s actually always panned out the best is that as you find the people you want to be around, and as you let that lead the discovery, it actually works out for the better. For instance, there were spaces in the art world that felt very exclusive and daunting to be a part of, and I really hated being in those spaces. As time went on, I realized those spaces were not for me at all. I was like, well why do I want to be a part of that in the first place? Then, those spaces kind of just stopped being cool anyways.
SA: Something freeing happens when you stop caring.
AK: Yeah, and when you direct your care towards the people that deserve it, it starts compounding and you don’t have to keep receipts on any of it because the people that you’re going to keep around you, are the ones where it will always just flow.
SW: I feel that way about gatekeeping in general, it’s kinda how creative infrastructure works because it’s all about accessibility and how you get people to care about you. In y’all’s work with NewCrits and NEW INC., what’s the role of care and criticism? How do you advise people to move through the world? Because these things still happen, there are a lot of hostile spaces that make themselves seem like you need their approval in a way.
SA: Ajay, I’d love to hear you talk about this, because I feel like what you do so well and what NewCrits does so well, is think about how to give critique lovingly. Critique is never a tear down, but instead a deep investment. Like, “I believe in you, and I believe in this so much that I want to see it grow and evolve.” What do you think?
AK: The gatekeeping part is funny sometimes because there are plenty of spaces that are doing that, and that’s not great. Then sometimes there’s like a misapprehension of gatekeeping, where there are spaces that have limited resources and spaces that can only afford to do so much. Which means that there’s only this many people that can apply or this many people that can be a part of it, and sometimes people look at that and they’re like, it’s so exclusive. They didn’t let me in. And it’s like, well, then it just wasn’t for you this time. It’s okay – just because you didn’t get into something doesn’t mean that you lost something. A quote I try to live by is, “You can’t lose what wasn’t meant for you.” There are things that just don’t happen that first time, it doesn’t mean give up and move on but try to understand that there’s a lot of things at play.
One thing I would say is start your own things, even if you don’t plan to do that forever. Just see what it feels like to have people rely on you, to have so many egos in the room, to understand what it is that you want to build, or what it is that you see is lacking. You’ll then get a sense of how other people are moving and why they’re moving that way when it comes to critique and community. The core of NewCrits is critical care and developing rigor without sacrificing care. We just try to be like the midwives of other people’s ideas. We really try to see what it is that you’re building and how we can help to bring that idea to life as much as possible, and there’s some trial and error there. You have to ask a lot of questions and be invested in what that person is bringing to the table, even if they don’t know what it is just yet. So, there’s a way to keep that space open and constructive and see what they’re moving towards. That’s an ongoing conversation, whether you’re doing that one-on-one or if you’re doing that in groups, there’s different ways to create a level of hospitality. It’s not a one size fits all.
SW: That’s important because it’s really difficult to get specialized attention, where you’re actually stepping into their minds, trying to figure out what they want to achieve, and then trying to support them through that. Same for doing things for the first time or trying new things, it’s an uncomfortable experience. So, having people to midwife you by saying, “Yeah, keep going! It’ll suck until it gets better!” That’s really important to hear.
AK: I mean, Salome deals with a higher volume of people than what I deal with right now. So, I ask for tips sometimes because when you’re constantly the go-to person for a lot of people, it’s hard to give everybody the proper attention they need in that particular moment. And she does it very gracefully.
SA: I think something that’s interesting about scale is that there’s an opportunity to experiment with multi-directional learning. Everyone in the program has done the big, brave thing of saying, “The thing I care a lot about in the world, I want this to be my life’s work,” and I think sometimes when you run a program like this, to Ajay’s point, people come to the team for information and support. But there are so many people in the program who have seasoned careers, so they can start learning from each other. So, I think we really have started to build in some scaffolding into the structure of the program where people don’t need to come just to us. They can go to each other to learn. Really encouraging skill shares, offering what resources we can for people to do field trips together or invite speakers. Not everything has to be led by us, but we can just provide the infrastructure for people to meet.
SW: Totally. How would you guys describe where you’re located inside of creative infrastructure? There are residencies, grants, non-profits, incubators, etc. How do you survive within that as an artist and what do you tell them once their time with you is over?
SA: Yeah. I mean we’ve always called ourselves a cultural incubator program, but sometimes I boil it down to– we’re a yearlong professional development and mentorship program. We have four core offerings: professional development, mentorship, community programs, and shared workspace. We cover a widespread of learning, everything from how to financially sustain a studio practice or new business to what emerging trends we’re seeing in art, design, and technology. You’re also very held at NEW INC. We have over 130 mentors join us each year to support the cohort. And now in the expanded New Museum, we have a purpose-built workspace that includes a media lab and fabrication lab. I’ve also heard people call us an artist services initiative or program. But I’m curious Ajay, because we sit in a blurry category; we’re not a residency or fellowship. How do you define your work?
AK: When people ask what NewCrits is, I say it’s a global platform for virtual studio mentorship—but it’s really grown into a broader ecosystem. There are two sides to it now: we host a monthly in-person talk series called The Forum, which gets recorded and lives on as its own kind of virtual mentorship. The idea is to bring leading voices across contemporary culture into the conversation, so people aren’t just learning technique—they’re learning how to think, position themselves, and engage with the world right now. It creates continuity. It’s not just a one-off talk, it’s a living archive artists can return to, feel part of, and get real proximity into how someone approaches their practice—not just their output.
I’m also doing a live event with NEON Productions—a conversation with screenwriter Ed Solomon, who wrote Men in Black, and a panel of artists around what it means to be an artist assistant, tied to the upcoming film The Christophers. The film is essentially about the artist-to-assistant relationship—authorship, creative mentorship, all that dicey, interesting space where you can thrive and grow, but also get torn down and hurt.
And then we have a forthcoming podcast called Spent, which focuses on burnout and sustaining an artistic practice. That feels like a natural extension of everything we’re already doing.
The bigger ambition though—we want a brick and mortar space. A school you haven’t seen before, one that actually takes care of people. Especially right now, with the way things are going, I think these cultural spaces need to be more than career launchpads. They need to be community safe havens. And what you were saying earlier about ambition—that’s very real to me. I love when artists have metaphors for utopia, but I love even more when they act on it and try to build new infrastructures.
SW: Something I face a lot is feeling dispensable. When I think about residencies or fellowships, of course you have a long-standing relationship with that organization, but it does feel like someone’s just going to replace you or that you must fight for care, a safe haven, or belonging. The way you’re talking about the future of NewCrits and what you guys do, it’s not about just getting to the next person in the door. It’s actually about nurturing and making sure they have what they need when they leave.
SA: I think the other thing I hear in your question is, you know, these artist opportunities are term-limited and what happens afterward? Also, how do you compile a meaningful career from all of these experiences that are term-limited? I think part of that is the challenge of being able to sustain long term alumni relationships. Most of the programs we love have small but mighty teams. So, even when I think about NEW INC, at this point, we have over 700 alumni, and that is some serious relationship management. We have an incredible head of community Paul John who does a lot of that outreach and community care, but we’ve also had to build in structures for people to continue to stay engaged with us. That means that in our mentorship offering, we reach back out to alumni to see if they want to continue with us in that capacity, and many do! We have big community events where we invite alumni back, so that’s the way we stay in touch. We also have two alumni Caroline Woolard and Or Zubalsky start Pollinator. They recognized that many residencies, fellowships, and even universities have this challenge with aftercare and engagement. This idea of continuing to support the life of a creative person after they’ve left a program, and so they’ve created a platform that brings together alumni from different organizations to convene and continue to network. So, I love this. I love being part of Pollinator and providing that service to our alumni.
SW: Totally. Yeah. Because a big fear is fumbling around trying to keep the ball moving. I think aftercare is the perfect way to put that. It’s a bit like a catch and release, or the aftermath of what happens when your carriage turns back into a pumpkin. Often, I use the metaphor of Tarzan jumping from vine to vine. The gig economy requires you to jump from opportunity to survive, unless you have unlimited funds. I guess it goes back to the whole, “What you’re looking for is looking for you,” saying. I don’t know, it still feels like a risk, but I guess we’re all figuring that out together. This leads me to my next question: what was the art world like when you first entered this field, and how has it changed?
AK: It was trash in comparison to this.
SA: I was gonna start by asking, how real do we want to be? But, you went for it.
AK: Yeah. Things have improved a lot. I mean, it was almost entirely white for the first part. For example, it’s like people talking about food and being like, oh, it’s “ethnic food.” That was the level of the conversation. That’s not where we are now. Like, now we can exchange recipes, and we know there’s different ways to cook. It’s an entirely different operation. On one hand, there’s been a lot of change, and I think for me, it’s been really cool to see that. On the other hand, I know that those changes are still in some ways superficial. Like, structurally, there’s not massive amounts of change. I think that’s a longer issue and a longer problem, where the way our art institutions are run, who runs them, and who’s on the boards of all of these places is still going to dictate the largest outcomes. That’s why new institutions are necessary, because if those boards include people that want the world to be a certain way, they are going to have an invisible influence on how the world is going to be in terms of what the future holds.
SA: I think that structural experimentation, especially around finances and business modeling, is the next frontier. I mean, from every corner of the art world, people are trying to figure this out. Whether it’s your individual studio practice to the giant museum, everyone is realizing that we’re on shaky ground, and we need new ways of working. I think that has been the most exciting thing to be part of right now in the art world, is figuring out what the new systems should be and how to implement them. There’s a lot of experimentation happening right now. I don’t know what will hold, but the fact that people are trying new things is exciting.
SW: That’s how the avant-garde happens, it’s how new art movements happen, it’s the new generation. You guys are the new generation. Virgil Abloh used to talk about how the guard is shifting, like the guard of the gate being kept, the guard is changing because the generations are moving along.
SA: I think where there were gatekeepers, maybe now there are locksmiths. I think of Ajay as a locksmith and I think of myself as a locksmith. There are now people with jangly keys who are trying to figure something different.
AK: Gotta keep some bolt cutters on you.
SA: Yeah.
AK: About sustainability, like that Tarzan metaphor, just hearing that stressed me out. I do think that there’s different ways to think about sustainability. There is the obvious financial one which is ever present. I don’t know if there’s any institution, or any service that’s ever going to solve all of that for you. They can give you tools and tips, but in the end, the way you live your life and the ways in which you want to make ends meet is going to be different from person to person. Then there’s an internal sustainability where, you ask yourself, is your well running dry, or is it being filled by the experiences, the things that you choose to do, and who you choose to do it with? Those are related, but I don’t think that they’re the same. Sometimes taking a break is okay. I do think that there is this sense that you always must be doing something. Like, when you’re out and about, people are asking you, “Oh, so what’s coming up? What are you doing? What’s the next thing?” And it’s like, nothing. Like, I’m just taking a break right now, that’s okay, too.
SA: The break is part of the process; it’s needed for growth. I once heard an investor in our mentor program describe this moment in the economy as the “obsession economy”. We are in a moment where the things that people feel really drawn to support are ones led by founders, artists or creative people who are so obsessed about the thing that they’re making, it just generates an intense community around it that supports sustainability.
AK: This artist Vijay Masharani. He was an old student of mine, when he was at MICA, but we’re peers and friends now. He’s a brilliant, brilliant person. His mind works so fast and sometimes he had the propensity to overthink things. I remember one time just telling him like, “Dude, just make cool shit. Just make cool shit and the rest of it will figure itself out,” because like, he’s done all the work. He’s read a million more things than I have, he knows art history – he knows all the things. Whatever is in his head, it’s working. It’s there, and now he just has to surrender. If that’s making an artwork, great. If that’s an exhibition or a design agency, great.
Whatever it is, just make it the coolest thing in your head. And by cool, I don’t mean exclusive. I mean, does this make you as excited and happy as it possibly can? Can you ratchet that up anymore? As soon as you feel like it’s overflowing, that’s when people will fuck with it, and when you share that with someone, they hopefully feel everything you put into it. That’s always the goal, and there’s people who do it over and over again. Like, when I see people who have had careers for like 30, 40, 50 years and they’re still doing the thing that really excites them. It’s overwhelming because I know what I’ve gone through in the past, nearing 20 years of being in this business now. There are so many moments where you have loss of faith and feeling completely discombobulated, and to do that over and over again– have you seen that Marshawn Lynch interview where he’s talking about getting hit? Yeah, you just get hit over and over, and he says it like 15 times. I was like, yeah, he gets it.
SW: Wow.
SA: Believing in a long arc like that and knowing that in the short term while you’re experimenting and trying many different things, that it won’t define you. You are experimenting until you land somewhere that feels good and that you’re excited about building consistency. Just trusting, it’s not going to happen immediately. Right? Like, I’m sure there was work, Ajay, you made early on in your career that you were like, what was I doing? That’s true for me too. But it was all so important to the process of arriving at where I am now.
SW: With that being said, my last question is, are we doing all of this interdisciplinary work and remixing of ideas in search of something new? They say nothing can be new anymore, and everything’s already been done. How do you advise people through that and what do you think is possible?
SA: I think working in a cross-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary way isn’t always so much about getting us to somewhere new, but instead, sitting in what exists and doing the deep work of translation. There are so many ways I now understand my work differently when I talk to someone who’s in a completely different medium, sector, or silo. So, for me it’s about getting to deeper understanding with each other. I wanted to ask Ajay about that point, because part of your question just made me think about how artists run programs and what impact your personal interdisciplinary studio practice has had on how you think about running an organization.
AK: I think having a lot of ways of working helps to understand other people’s ways of working, for sure. It gives me more points of reference, but when it comes to newness or what it is that anybody’s trying to build towards, I go back to the “just do cool shit” thing because then you’re not overthinking it. I think that when you try to speculate on how you’re going to be new, it’s usually going to stress you out to the point that you keep disappointing yourself. The only advice that my gallerist has ever given me is, “Go to the studio. Just go to the studio. Just be present and stay with the work and it’ll lead you somewhere.” The problem that I find with a lot of people is that they give up on staying with it and they try something else because they’re like, oh, that didn’t work and I’m going to do this. I’m guilty of this as well.
Anybody who says there’s nothing new is lying. History is long and people will naysay. But when you look at things in the rear-view mirror, you’re going to designate what was new and what the paradigm shift was after the fact, after that person was just living with it in their basement or their studio or wherever long enough to make it happen.
SW: Totally, I agree. Not being afraid to fail is so humbling and so important. It’s the ugly truth that proves how difficult it is to keep going. I just saw something today about when you have good taste, you’re sometimes unsatisfied with the things that you make, and then you must move through that and keep making until you find it in the work. You can’t stop, you know?
