Artistic Director:
Monika Wuhrer is the founder and artistic director of Open Source Gallery and KoKo NYC. Originally from Austria, she received her MFA in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Monika founded Open Source Gallery in 2007. She has been a SHIFT resident at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and an Artist in Residence at the Montello Foundation. She has received awards and grants from the Austrian Cultural Forum, Austrian Federal Chancellery, Puffin Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. Monika has exhibited in the US, Norway, Austria, Italy, Thailand, Finland, France, Switzerland, and Japan.
Managing Director:
Rebecca Mzengi Corey is an arts practitioner whose interdisciplinary work includes visual art, curation, filmmaking, and cultural institution building and management. She has held top leadership roles at several major arts institutions in East Africa, where she lived and worked for over a decade (2009-23). While serving as Artistic and Executive Director of Nafasi Art Space in Dar es Salaam, she founded the Nafasi Academy for Contemporary Art and Expression, Tanzania’s first contemporary art training program for artists, curators and cultural workers, and oversaw the development of the FEEL FREE Fund, which provides funding, incubation, and mentorship to artist-led initiatives across the country. She also spearheaded efforts to create a more thriving and networked arts ecosystem across the region. Her work in cultural heritage preservation and promotion has been covered in international media such as NPR, CNN Inside Africa, OkayAfrica and Forbes, among others. She has curated a number of solo and group exhibitions, including “Living Art, Living History” for the East Africa Art Biennale in 2021 and “ReMix” at the Congo Biennale in 2022. She sees the arts as a space for radical imagination, critical thought, and reciprocity and care. In 2023, she re-located to Brooklyn, NY and is excited to have joined Open Source Gallery as Managing Director.
Development Director:
Shauna Sorensen received her BA in Studio Art from Wagner College. Originally from Syracuse, NY, she moved to Brooklyn in 2011 and joined Open Source in 2012. Recently, she moved to Denver, Colorado and continues to work with Open Source remotely. Shauna has worked as a grant writer with both individual artists and organizations.
Program Coordinator:
Keli Safia Maksud Keli Safia Maksud is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working in sound, sculpture, installation, text, printmaking and embroidery. Concerned with histories of colonial encounters and its effects on memory, Keli’s practice favors the space of in-between and its threshold and works towards destabilizing received histories in order to expose fictions of the state. Keli earned her BFA in Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design University, a Diploma in Art and Curatorial Studies at the New Centre for Research and Practice and an MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University. Her work has shown at the Bamako Biennial, National Museum of Contemporary Art – Seoul, Galería Nueva and the Biennial of Contemporary Art Sesc_Videobrasil.
Marketing Assistant & Graphic Designer:
Chan Kim is the lead designer at Open Source Gallery and KoKo NYC. He received his BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. His work mostly involves communication and working with children. Through teaching, he has been inspired to create work that is accessible. His experience in corporate branding reassured the importance of a human approach. Each exhibit is an opportunity to tell a story – with empathy. He believes design should be flexible, especially when the identity of Open Source Gallery and KoKo NYC is constructed with such a variety of artists and people.
KoKo NYC
Education Director:
Christie Hodgkins is the Education Director for KoKo NYC, Open Source’s arts education program. She received her Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University and started her career in the field of education as a Teach For America corps member in New Orleans. Christie has coordinated public programs for kids + families at Battery Park City Parks Conservancy and served as the Executive Director of Youth on the Edge…of Greatness in Detroit. Most recently, Christie worked at CAMBA where she developed and scaled up youth development programs ranging from early literacy and elementary/middle school after-school programs, to summer camps and college access + prep programs. Christie believes deeply that all kids should have access to KoKo’s unique programming and is excited to bring KoKo to more communities across NYC.
Education Administrator:
Parker Perez is a poet-writer, performer, musician, producer and educator-administrator from New York City. In their work in non-profit arts education, Parker both provides and supports access to equitable and high quality arts programming for young artists in the Tri-State area- focusing on LGBTQ+ youth as well as youth from diversified economic backgrounds. Parker is most excited to continue building on the amazing work at KoKo NYC!
