Bio
Hans Kuzmich is a Belarus-born, Los Angeles-based artist working across transmission arts, media installation, and performance. His practice tunes into the acoustic and electromagnetic environments of borders and carceral sites, developing a trans, diasporic listening methodology oriented toward abolitionist horizons. Attending to the technical infrastructures and the political and ecological networks that constitute each site, his work engages them speculatively across past, present, and future.
Kuzmich’s work has been presented in the United States and internationally, including at Sonic Nomads, Seoul; Radiophrenia, Glasgow; Clockshop, Los Angeles; and UCR ARTS, Riverside, and broadcast on WGXC 90.7 FM and Resonance 104.4 FM, London. He has been an artist in residence at The Studios at MASS MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, Wave Farm, Millay Arts, and Nida Art Colony, Lithuania, and will be in residence with Ars Bioarctica in Kilpisjärvi, Finland, in 2027. His installation Radiant Center received an honorable mention for the 2026 Surveillance Studies Network Arts Prize, and his work has also been recognized with the Coha-Gunderson Prize in Speculative Futures and a Puffin Foundation grant. His writing has appeared in Theory, Culture & Society and Art Journal, with forthcoming work in Anomos and Surveillance & Society.
Kuzmich is completing a PhD in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He holds an MFA from UCLA and a BFA from Cooper Union, and is an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Born in Bobruisk, Belarus |
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Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA |
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Education |
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PhD |
Film and Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz, expected June 2027 |
MFA |
Art, Interdisciplinary Studio, University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 |
Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, NY, 2009–10 |
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BFA |
Fine Arts, Cooper Union, New York, NY, 2005 |
Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2004 (exchange semester) |
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Solo Exhibitions |
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2025 |
Radiant Center, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts, Nida, Lithuania |
2024 |
Three Transmissions from a Carceral State, WGXC Catskill Studio, Catskill, NY, and WGXC 90.7 FM; rebroadcast in From the Transmission Art Archive, 2026 |
2013 |
Skid Row Scenes, MFA thesis exhibition, New Wight Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles |
2005 |
Untitled: “Justice Through Science,” Residence, MICA Foundation, New York, NY (organized by Tom Burr) |
Selected Group Exhibitions |
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2026 |
Reading and Listening by Moonrise, Clockshop at David Horvitz’s 7th Ave Garden, Los Angeles, CA (curated by Vanessa Holyoak) |
Fold, Spindle, Mutilate, UCR ARTS, Riverside, CA |
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Surveillance Studies Network Arts Prize Exhibition, Surveillance Studies Network Conference, Université Catholique de Lille, France (online) |
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Radio-Hull, 106.5 FM, DAÏMÔN, Gatineau, Canada |
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Radiophrenia, 87.9 FM, Glasgow, UK; simulcast on Resonance Extra, London, UK, and Radio Tsonami, Valparaíso, Chile |
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Eco Media Festival, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California, Los Angeles |
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2025 |
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Video Library, Paris, France (online) |
Sonic Nomads, TILT, Seoul, South Korea (curated by Transients: Jiyoung Yoon, Yeabon Jo, and Suk-Jun Kim) |
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Radiophrenia, 87.9 FM, Glasgow, UK; simulcast on Resonance 104.4 FM, London, UK |
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SPAM New Media Festival, Georgetown Steam Plant, Seattle, WA |
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Sound + Environment Symposium, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK |
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2024 |
NIDA. Meeting Photography, International Photography Symposium, Lithuanian Photographers Association, Nida, Lithuania |
2021 |
Kindred Solidarities: Queer Community and Chosen Families, The 8th Floor, Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, New York, NY (with Parallel Lines and FIERCE; curated by Anjuli Nanda Diamond and George Bolster) |
SOMA Summer Exhibition, SOMA, Mexico City, Mexico |
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2015 |
Memories of Underdevelopment, Temporary Agency at The Bakery Brooklyn, NY (with Parallel Lines and FIERCE; programmed by Cassandra Guan) |
2014 |
Mike Kelley's Mobile Homestead, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, CA (with Critical Resistance Los Angeles) |
Dreaming Wildly, Fighting to Win, Underground Museum, Los Angeles, CA (with Parallel Lines) |
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2013 |
Writing with the other hand is imagining, Beirut, Cairo, Egypt (with Parallel Lines and FIERCE) |
2012 |
BOOM Los Angeles, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, CA |
MFA 2013 Exhibition, New Wight Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles |
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2010 |
Riptide, The Kitchen, New York, NY (with Parallel Lines) |
Whitney Independent Study Program Exhibition, Art in General, New York, NY (with Parallel Lines) |
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Queer Pier, 40 Years, FIERCE, New York, NY (with Parallel Lines) |
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Open Sourcing the City, No-Space, Not An Alternative, Brooklyn, NY (with Parallel Lines) |
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2009 |
Wildness, Silver Platter, Los Angeles, CA |
2008 |
Friday Night Series, The Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, New York, NY |
2007 |
Qurash, AS220, Providence, RI |
2006 |
video_dumbo, Brooklyn, NY |
Translations: Seattle Trans Film Festival, Seattle, WA |
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2005 |
Flaming Film Festival, Minneapolis, MN |
Artist Residencies |
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2027 |
Ars Bioarctica Residency, Bioart Society, Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, University of Helsinki, Kilpisjärvi, Finland [upcoming] |
2026 |
Core Residency, Millay Arts, Austerlitz, NY |
2025 |
Individual Residency, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts, Nida, Lithuania |
2024 |
Transmission Arts Residency, Wave Farm, Acra, NY |
The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA |
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Residency Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT |
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Campbient Sound Art Residency, Millersylvania State Park, Olympia, WA |
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2021 |
SOMA Summer, San Rafael, Veracruz, Mexico |
2007 |
Multimedia Artist Residency, BCAT/Rotunda Gallery, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY |
Selected Awards, Grants, and Fellowships |
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2026–27 |
University of California President’s Dissertation-Year Fellowship |
2026 |
Honorable Mention, Surveillance Studies Network Arts Prize |
Artist Grant, Puffin Foundation |
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2025 |
Corday GROW Summer Fellowship, Film and Digital Media Department, University of California, Santa Cruz |
Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence and Equity, University of California, Santa Cruz |
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2024–25 |
Coha-Gunderson Prize in Speculative Futures, Humanities Institute, University of California, Santa Cruz |
2023–24 |
Arts Research Institute Graduate Student Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz |
2023 |
Institute for Critical Social Inquiry Fellowship, The New School for Social Research |
2020–21 |
Chancellor’s Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz |
Arts Education Fellowship, Institute of the Arts and Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz |
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2012–13 |
Lilian Levinson Foundation Scholarship, Art Department, University of California, Los Angeles |
2011–12 |
UCLA Art Council Award |
Publications |
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“Radiant Center: Border Infrastructure and Aeolian Drift.” Anomos: The Journal for Post-Foundational Inquiry, special issue on “Migration and Technologies of Un/Bordering” [forthcoming]. |
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“Radiant Center.” Surveillance & Society, Arts Forum [forthcoming]. |
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2025 |
“Of the Welding Sky,” with Ian Mann, Joni Mueller, Liz Baxmeyer, Steve Ashby, and Winston McDirt. Track 3 on Campbient 5. Seattle: RealMoreReal, 2025. 12-inch vinyl and digital album. |
2024 |
Syllabus for Art and Activism, with Mary Kelly, reproduced in Mary Kelly’s Concentric Pedagogy: Selected Writings, edited by Juli Carson, 50–51. New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2024. |
2020 |
“Brief History of Critical Resistance,” “Statement on Visual Politics,” and “‘No Bars Unless Being Broken’: A Letter to Collaborators,” with Jess Heaney. In Imagine Freedom: Art Works for Abolition, 1, 85–87. Oakland, CA: Critical Resistance, 2020. |
2014 |
“On Intimacy with Crisis.” In Compassion Fatigue: New Wight Biennial 2014, edited by Damir Avdagic and Abigail Collins, 103–5. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, 2014. |
2013 |
“Queer Pier: 40 Years,” with Thomas J. Lax, Jeannine Tang, A. Naomi Jackson, Parallel Lines (as a member), Ginger Brooks Takahashi, and Marvin J. Taylor. Art Journal 72, no. 2 (2013): 106–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2013.10791041. |
2012 |
“Collective Listening.” In Sharon Hayes: There’s So Much I Want to Say to You, edited by Chrissie Iles, 28. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2012. |
2011 |
“Residues of a Dream World: The High Line, 2011,” with Michael Cataldi, David Kelley, Jens Maier-Rothe, and Jeannine Tang. Theory, Culture & Society 28, no. 7–8 (2011): 358–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276411425834. |
“Tactical Abjection: On the Drag of Alice Cunt and Kale Likover.” Native Strategies, no. 1 (2011): 8–15. |
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Presentations |
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2026 |
“Thermal Materiality: On Infrared Imaging in Trans Video,” Screen Studies Conference, University of Glasgow, UK, June 27 |
“Radiant Center,” Surveillance Studies Network Biennial Conference, Université Catholique de Lille, France, June 11 |
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“Electromagnetic Specters: Trans Experiments on the Edges of Perceptibility,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, March 26 |
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“Roundtable: Why Radio?” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology Southern California and Hawaiʻi Chapter, University of San Diego, CA, February 28 |
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2025 |
“Radiant Center: Border Infrastructure and Aeolian Drift,” Sound + Environment Symposium, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, September 4 |
“Radiant Center: Border Infrastructure and Aeolian Drift,” Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Seattle, WA, September 3 (online) |
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“Radiant Center: Border Infrastructure and Aeolian Drift,” Migration and Technologies of Un/Bordering Conference, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, June 6 (online) |
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“Three Transmissions from a Carceral State,” Signals from the Edge: Land-Based “Pirate Radio” Conference, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK, March 1 |
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2022 |
“Visuality Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex,” The Afterlife of Slavery: A Graduate Research Symposium, University of California, Santa Cruz, June 6 |
2017 |
“Non-binary Gender Identity and Social Groups,” Annual Meeting of GREX: An Institute for the Study of Authority and Leadership in Groups, Los Angeles, CA, December 9 |
2015 |
“Abolition as Critical Pedagogy,” workshop, Subconference of the MLA, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, January 7 (with Critical Resistance Los Angeles) |
2014 |
Panel and workshop, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, April 27 (with Critical Resistance Los Angeles, Andrea Fraser, Rachel Herzing, and Ashley Hunt) |
2013 |
“How to Be in a Group: A Group Relations Approach,” workshop, Collectivity: Utopia as Critique, Concord, Los Angeles, CA, June 29 |
2012 |
“Residues of a Dream World,” Urban Speculation and Contested Geographies, University of California, Irvine, October 19 |
Selected Bibliography |
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2025 |
Afroditi Psarra, “SPAM Festival Special.” Transmission Ecologies, episode 40. Stegi Radio, October 30, 2025. |
2024 |
Galen Joseph-Hunter, “Keith Sanborn and Hans Kuzmich.” Afternoon Show. WGXC 90.7 FM, October 16, 2024. |
Mary Kelly, “Formations in the Studio.” In Mary Kelly’s Concentric Pedagogy: Selected Writings, edited by Juli Carson, 79–92, ill. New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2024. |
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2021 |
Amber Jamilla Musser, “Solidarity: In and Through the Work of Kinship.” In Kindred Solidarities: Queer Community and Chosen Families, edited by George Bolster and Anjuli Nanda Diamond, 1–13. New York: Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, 2021. |
2016 |
John Tain, “Wildness Los Angeles.” Flash Art International 49, no. 311 (November/December 2016): 88. |
2013 |
David P. Stein, “‘To Propel the Movement Forward’: Interview with Organizer-Artists of Critical Resistance.” The Abolitionist, no. 21 (2013): 9–11. |
Teaching Experience |
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2024–25 |
Instructor, Film and Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz |
2021–26 |
Teaching Assistant, Film and Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz |
2015–16 |
Instructor, Photography and Media, California Institute of the Arts |
2010–13 |
Teaching Assistant, Art and Art History, University of California, Los Angeles |