Four teams of Madison-area artists—representing diverse artistic disciplines and backgrounds—will create two summers of programming and exhibitions at Arts + Literature Laboratory (ALL) and other participating community spaces. LAB^4 forges a new path for ALL’s program development by fully embracing intersectionality across artistic disciplines, identities, and ideas. Above all else, the LAB^4 project seeks to shift the role of curators from gatekeepers to their original definition as caretakers.
Each LAB^4 team is given a budget to support the curation of innovative art and development of workshops, performances, readings, and collaborative projects. Teams will also have resources to bring local artists into conversation with regional and national artists.
This initiative is made possible by The Ruth Foundation for the Arts, who selected ALL as one of 10 recipients of their 2024 Special Project Grants. Ruth Arts praised ALL’s “emphasis on public knowledge sharing and uplifting historically underrepresented communities, [ALL’s] commitment to equitable partnerships, and for encouraging creative change within this region.”
LAB^4 Curators
Team 1: Matt Blair, Matthew Braunginn, Danielle Dresden, Liz Levine, Emily Popp, Deshawn McKinney, and two highschool-aged artists.
Team 2: Dan Fitch, Autumn Jocas, Nicole Rago, Meghan Rosing, and two highschool-aged artists.
Team 3: Elias Mittelstadt, Charles Payne, Rae Sowards, LaShawn M. Wanak, Katherine Zlabek, and two highschool-aged artists.
Team 4: Ariana Gutierrez, Adriana Peguero, Matt Wisotsky, Sarah Breland, juj e lepe, Jackie Chalghin, and two highschool-aged artists.
LAB^4 Showcase Schedule
Team 1: April 29–June 21, 2025
Team 2: July 8–August 29, 2025
Team 3: April 28–June 20, 2026
Team 4: July 7–August 29, 2026
Meet Team 3
Exhibitions and programming runs from April 28 through June 20, 2026.
Curators:
LaShawn M. Wanak writes speculative stories, essays, and poetry. Her work is published in venues such as Uncanny Magazine, FIYAH and Sunday Morning Transport. She served as the lead writer for the art collective Meow Wolf on their permanent immersive exhibit, “The Real Unreal”, in Grapevine, TX. She is also the editor of the Hugo-nominated online magazine GigaNotoSaurus. LaShawn enjoys knitting, anime, and wrestling with theological truths from a Womanist perspective. You can find her on Facebook, Bluesky, her website “The Cafe in the Woods”, and her Patreon. Writing stories keeps her sane. Also, pie. write…when things break
Katherine Zlabek earned her MFA from Western Michigan University and her PhD from the University of Cincinnati, where she was a Taft Dissertation Fellow and a recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award. Her story collection, When, winner of The Journal’s 2018 Non/Fiction Collection Prize, is available from The Ohio State University Press. Her stories and essays have appeared in Boulevard, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, and other journals. Ricochet Editions published her chapbook, Let the Rivers Clap Their Hands, in 2015. She currently writes in Madison, Wisconsin, where she is an artist-in-residence at Dane Arts. She can be found at www.katherinezlabek.com ferment…when things break
Charles Payne is a Madison-based social artist, playwright, and poet who weaves personal narrative and social commentary into his work to spark meaningful change. A former school teacher and self-taught spoken word artist, Payne's creative endeavors have earned him notable recognition, including the Arts + Literature LAB^4oratory's ALL Originals Prize, the 2023 Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District Artist/Educator in Residence, a 2024 Madison Magazine Amy Award, and the 2025 Swanson Emerging Poet Fellowship from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. weave…when things break
Elias Mittelstadt is a maker in Madison, WI. He is inspired by his education in industrial and interaction design and by the resourcefulness of DIYers and the maker community. He utilizes 3D printing, digital design, sewing, and welding in his work. Elias has worked with and assisted local artists and woodworkers and specializes in CAD and technical drawings for products. In addition, he has created courses, workshops, and programming for people of all ages through the Bubbler, Madison Public Library, and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. diy…when things break
Rae Sowards has her MFA in Photography from Maryland Institute College of Art. Rae was born and raised in Dundalk, a working-class port town located outside the city limits of Baltimore. Her backyard was a playground of towering factory stacks puffing chemicals from the local steel mill. She knew beauty in the grandeur of industrial-sized unpacking cranes. At sunset, their metal necks would shine and reflect off the Chesapeake and dissolve into the smoky orange glow of the sky. This is where she first learned that beauty and peril can be the same. It was with this revelation that she yearned to capture and hold space for the beauty and peril that is life, with the hope to learn and love through it all. You can learn more about Rae at raesowards.com create…when things break
Sarah Ensor teaches queer studies, Environmental Humanities, and American literature in the English department at UW-Madison. Her recent book, Queer Lasting: Ecologies of Care for a Dying World (2025), looks to scenes of queer extinction for forms of care, continuance, and collective action that emerge “at the last”: at the at the end of life, at the end of a family line, for the last living member of a species, at the end of the future itself. She also writes frequently about queer kinmaking, queer teaching, and queer reading - all of which are, perhaps, also her art practices. care…when things break
