NEW INC
Asega first joined NEW INC as a member of its third cohort in 2016–2017, during which time she incubated POWRPLNT, a digital arts education nonprofit based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The organization was incubated at NEW INC and operates as a community space offering workshops for young people taught by local artists and musicians. [7]
In July 2021, she was appointed director of NEW INC, the New Museum's cultural incubator founded in 2014, succeeding Stephanie Pereira. [8] [9] NEW INC supports approximately 100 creative entrepreneurs annually across art, design, technology, science, and architecture, providing professional development, mentorship, and shared workspace. [10] Under Asega's leadership, NEW INC has expanded its public-facing programming, launching the DEMO festival in 2023 to showcase member projects to broader audiences through demonstrations, exhibitions, performances, and talks. [11]
Asega has described her approach to running NEW INC as akin to gardening rather than architecture, emphasizing the cultivation of an ecosystem where creative people can have chance encounters and learn from one another across disciplines. [2] She manages a team of seven and oversees programming for over 600 alumni in addition to the annual cohort. In 2022, the Mellon Foundation awarded NEW INC a three-year, $1.5 million grant in support of Asega's vision for the program. [9]
Artistic work
Asega's artistic practice centers on participatory design, emerging technology, and collaborative making. Her projects are typically co-created with other artists and community members, reflecting an approach she traces to her background in community organizing. [4]
Iyapo Repository
Iyapo Repository is an ongoing collaborative project co-created with artist Ayodamola Tanimowo Okunseinde, begun during their residency at Eyebeam in 2015. [12] Named after Lilith Iyapo, the protagonist of Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy, the project is a speculative resource library housing digital and physical artifacts created to represent the future of people of African descent. [13] Through participatory workshops at cultural institutions, participants take on the role of archivists from the future, using a card game designed by the artists to envision technological and cultural artifacts. Participants draw their ideas on manuscripts, which are collected and encased in acrylic in the project's archives. [14] Notable artifacts created through the project include a suit with tubes that pump water from the Atlantic Ocean, designed to evoke the history of the transatlantic slave trade, and a GPS necklace that vibrates when the wearer approaches the site of a police-involved shooting in New York City. [15]
The project has been exhibited at the 11th Shanghai Biennale, the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and Macalester College's Law Warschaw Gallery. [16] [17]
P0SSESSI0N
P0SSESSI0N is a research project exploring connections between virtual reality and spirit possession in West African and Caribbean spiritual systems. [18] The VR experience takes viewers to an underwater environment representing the dwelling of Mami Wata, a deity venerated in parts of Africa and the African Atlantic. The project was first exhibited at Knockdown Center in Brooklyn as part of the group exhibition MAMI, curated by Ali Rosa-Salas and Dyani Douze. [19]
RATs
RATs (2022) is an installation addressing algorithmic risk assessment tools used in bail and prison sentencing, welfare eligibility, medical benefits, and housing services decisions. [20] The work features a rat-shaped monster truck, combining the acronym RAT with the monster trucks from Monster Jam events. The piece was shown at Nuit Blanche Festival in Toronto in 2022 and at the Munch Museum in Oslo as part of the exhibition "The Machine is Us." [21]
Other projects
Level Up: The Real Harlem Shake is an interactive video game created in collaboration with curator and dancer Ali Rosa-Salas and Chrybaby Cozie. [22] Developed during a residency at the New Museum with the dance company AUNTS, the project uses modified Kinect software to teach players the original Harlem Shake, a street and hip-hop dance that originated in 1980s Harlem.
Other projects include The Crown Heights Mic, a broadcast network collaboratively built by neighborhood stakeholders and residents; [23] and On the Line, a series transforming found photos of Asega's Ethiopian family into digitally abstracted postcards sent to her grandmother in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. [24]
