Join us on Monday, June 22, 2026 at the Civitella Castle for Presentations by Music Fellow Jessie Cox, Writing Fellow Joseph Campana, & Director’s Guest in Visual Arts Shahzia Sikander. We will welcome you with light refreshments at 5:45 PM. Reserve your spot below or tune in to our livestream on Instagram @CivitellaRanieri.
5:45PM CEST Welcome Cocktail
6PM CEST/12PM EDT Presentations
Jessie Cox is Assistant Professor of Music at Harvard University and a composer, drummer, and scholar. His first monograph, Sounds of Black Switzerland: Blackness, Music, and Unthought Voices (Duke UP, 2025), explores how experimental musical practices and thinking with Blackness open alternative ways of worlding. Cox’s practice spans avant-garde classical music, experimental jazz, and sound art. He has worked with ensembles such as the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Klangforum Wien. His Fellowship at Civitella is partially supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
Joseph Campana is a poet, arts writer, and scholar of the literature and culture of Renaissance England and Europe. He is the author of three collections of poetry The Book of Faces (2005), Natural Selections (2012), and The Book of Life (2019). He has received fellowships from the NEA, Houston Arts Alliance, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He is currently developing The Chapel in the Hive, which anchors an ongoing collaboration with composer Kurt Stallmann. He serves as William Shakespeare Professor of English at Rice University where he directs the Center for Environmental Studies.
Shahzia Sikander is widely celebrated for subverting Central and South-Asian miniature painting traditions into dialogue with contemporary international art practices and launching the form known today as neo-miniature. Engaging ideas of language, trade, empire, and migration through feminist perspectives, Sikander’s paintings, video animations, mosaics, and sculpture explore gender, sexuality, racial narratives, and colonial histories. Sikander is a recipient of the MacArthur award and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s Pollock Prize for Creativity, among others. In residence: June 11 – 26.