June Cheung (@lolosketches)
In asking a simple question, “what do you do,” we find surprisingly complicated answers.
Talk Show Screenings is proud to present Ultimate Concern, a panel conversation on day jobs, studio life, and the radical balancing act that every artist performs to stay afloat. Playing on the structure of late night talk shows, the evening will blend the boundaries between audience and presenter, as we welcome everyone to commiserate and share their experiences as working artists and as workers.
Joining us on the panel are three artists, June Cheung (They/Them), Yidan Zeng (She/Her), and Courtney Beaumont Jr (He/Him), who have unique experiences as working artists. They will discuss navigating freelancing and full-time lifestyles, how they knew when it was time to make a change, and how they keep finding joy in creativity and artistic work.
About Ultimate Concern:
The ideal image of the artist is an individual toiling away in their studio, but the reality is, most emerging and mid-career artists use a day job to enable their creative endeavors. We want to highlight the day job as a critical form of survival, particularly in major cities such as New York City and San Francisco.
In an informal interview format, we’ll ask artists/workers: is your day job an impediment to a studio practice or a source of inspiration? Do you pursue day jobs with consistency and set hours, or do you prefer the flexibility/unpredictability of the gig economy? Talk to us about your best and worst jobs in the open market. Are you trapped in the liminal space between emerging and mid-career? What do those words even mean? We want to know: how do you make a living, manage time, stay hopeful, and carve out a space for yourself.
About the Panelists:
June Cheung
Pronouns - they/them
June Cheung is a queer nonbinary Asian artist in NY creating soft, reflective spaces with their art. They mix art, tarot, and activism with their intersectional identity in the hope that sharing their own introspective journey will encourage others to live honestly and fearlessly. They explored the film industry (both union and non-union) for five years and stepped away to recover from the bigotry and harm the industry causes. They returned to their original two forms of art, drawing and photography, to find a gentle healing space for recovery, autonomy, and self-discovery. Their current focus is on intertwining community building with art creation, and their dayjob is at the Museum of Food and Drink as an Office Administrator where they advocate for queer, POC, and nonbinary visibility in exhibits.
Websites: laurencheung.com (previous legal name), instagram @lolosketches to view their tarot series.
Yidan Zeng
Pronouns: she/her
Yidan Zeng / 曽一丹 / is an intimacy investigator currently wandering/wondering through New York. She uses fabric, movement, and touch to explore multi-sensual forms for deep connection. Currently a resident artist at Textile Arts Center, she is experimenting with how natural dyes and weaving can be a conversation between the self and the natural environment. Her dayjob is Programs Coordinator at Eyebeam, where she interweaves questions of agency, wellbeing, and refusal into programming for youth and public events around technology.
Website: yidanzeng.com, Instagram: @yidanzeng
Courtney Beaumont Jr
Pronouns – he/him
Courtney Beaumont Jr. (Ceebo) is a Jamaican-American Visual Designer / Art Director, a native Queens kid, and is always a student of all things creative. Never afraid to venture outside his lane to try something new and gain inspiration in unexpected places. A branding / design specialist with over 10+ years experience in the advertising world.
When he’s not at his day job, he’s busy juggling freelance projects, or spreading some cool propaganda as Creator of The Calm Cool Collective brand.
Web: cargocollective.com/ceebo , IG: @thecccnyc