So Mak

Artist in Residence (2018-2020)
Fall Space Grant (2018/209)
Upstart Program (2017)

So Mak is a Brooklyn based, facilitator, educator, and youth worker with over 15 years of experience teaching at the intersection of art and social justice. Much of So’s organizing roots come from their time in Baltimore, MD, where they co-founded Baltimore Asian Resistance in Solidarity and were a member of United Diverse Artists that organized convenings around equity in the arts. As a facilitator, So brings a sharp power analysis and a creative, emergent approach to challenging group conversations about racial equity. Additionally, So is an interdisciplinary artist, with a background in performance, which allows So to create imaginative learning spaces that cultivate trust and vulnerability with participants, often inviting reflection and deep change.

So currently teaches at The New School’s Parsons School of Design as a part time faculty member and is a Youth Advocate for the Parsons Scholars Program. So holds an MA in Art and Public Policy from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where they used performance as a decolonizing research method to explore East Asian trans-masculinities through the racial metaphor of the banana. So has presented at numerous venues both nationally and abroad and is currently an artist in residence with their collaborator, Bex Kwan, at Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

So + Bex (So Mak and Bex Kwan) are not the same person. However, they are best friends who are both queer, gender non-conforming Chinese artists of roughly the same height (Bex is an inch taller), working with shadow, sound, and performance. Both alumni of EmergeNYC, the Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program, they began developing their collaborative artistic vocabulary at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), first as participants in the Upstart Program 2017-18, Space Grantees 2018, and then as Artists in Residence from 2019-2021. So + Bex were featured at The Brick’s 2018 Trans Theatre Festival, were Spring 2019 BRIClab residents, and were featured at The High Line’s Out of Line series in July 2019. So + Bex are 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellows.

Find So + Bex online at soandbex.com and on Instagram at @soandbex.