Artist Residency

Pau Tiu and Felize Camille Tolentino-Tiu!

And we are also thrilled to announce that our 2025 Artists-in-Residence will be

Felize (left) and Pau (right) of Bad Student

Together the couple runs Bad Student, a small risograph art press that Tiu started in the Philippines in 2017.

Risograph (or “riso”) printing uses a machine that looks like a photocopier, but functions like a screen printer. By building up layers of color one at a time, riso printing can create fine art prints of remarkable depth and vibrancy. But it can also cheaply print at high volumes, which has made riso popular in schools and among political activists around the world.

In the Philippines, Bad Student quickly became the center of a renaissance of risograph printing for art books and prints. Since Pau joined their wife Felize here in Sunnyside in 2023, a similar renaissance is underway in the Queens artist-community. “People come to the studio all the time and say, ‘Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to print my work in riso?’” Felize said. “It’s a real honor for us: the work we print—these are people’s dreams, their solace, their peace,” Pau added. “And we get to remind people that they are living that dream; they are making their art.”

The risograph machine, with feline companion…

That spirit of celebration and solidarity in collaboration is one of the things that made an impression on Father Carl Adair. “Everything Bad Student does has a spirit of real humility and generosity. They give honor to fellow-artists and their work, and that cultivates a space around the riso machine that is sacred. It’s our honor, in turn, to nurture that.”

The artist residency will allow Pau and Felize to move their printing operation into the community room at All Saints Episcopal Church, where the Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside is gathering. This larger space will let Bad Student work with more local artists than they can in their one-bedroom apartment, and to continue to cultivate community among Queens artists. They also plan to lean into riso’s history as an activist medium by developing community workshops with Sunnyside-Woodside Mutual Aid.

The residency will also provide resources for Pau and Felize to host a zine fair for Queens artists, and to pursue their own art practices. And the Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside will pay off the debt they still owe on the riso machine they bought with money gifted to them at their wedding.

“Debt-forgiveness was one of the radical practices of the community that first gathered around Jesus, and it is so meaningful for us to continue in that tradition with Bad Student,” Fr. Carl said. “Pau and Felize are already using their gifts and skills to create community marked by mutuality and generosity. To help them continue in that without the burden of debt is a joyful thing—and a deeply Christian thing.”

It is meaningful for Pau and Felize as well. “As we’ve been struggling with the debt for this machine, I’ve often questioned whether it was the right decision to go all in on this machine and this dream of making art together, here in New York. Having this residency has felt like a grace and mercy: to be affirmed in that dream, and affirmed in the decision to come here. I didn’t need to give up my art [in the Philippines] to live here with my wife.”

For Felize, the residency is an affirmation of another dream as well. “Coming here, my mom had this American Dream: for her, it was for her kids to have options to choose from, that they’re not stuck in just one path. Especially as a queer couple, coming from a culture where we couldn’t express our queerness so much, it’s really meaningful to have a space where we can come in and express ourselves, and share that with the community…to have neighbors share in this space that we’ve also wanted for ourselves.”

The Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside is a new community of Christian practice in Western Queens, supported by the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island. Growing out of the parish of All Saints Episcopal Church, which closed in 2020, its mission is to show the neighborhood “that things which have been cast down are being raised up, and things which have grown old are being made new.”

The Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside created this artist residency in 2024 as one way to invest in local artists—who are always making things new. (They also run a tiny local art gallery in a front window of the church.) “For us, creativity and transformation are essential dimensions of the sacred—of the life God is drawing us into—together,” Fr. Carl said.

That togetherness is one of the most meaningful parts of this residency for Pau: “This all started [for us] with a love of DIY publishing, and now it’s wonderful to see that we’re not doing it all by ourselves. It’s because people believe in Bad Student, and the Episcopal Church is a big believer in this—it’s so meaningful.”