United States Artists Awards 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship to Five Artists
Five artists redefining media art through collaboration and critical engagement with technology awarded $50,000 each
United States Artists announced the awardees of the 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, an annual initiative that supports five artists with unrestricted grants of $50,000 to further their disciplines, practices and innovative approaches in technology and new media.
Supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship awards artists who are expanding the boundaries of creative practice through emerging technologies — from augmented and virtual reality to immersive installations across sound, textile, digital fabrication and software-based work. Fellows use these tools in thoughtful, radical or poetic ways, pushing the field forward and critically engaging its possibilities.
“Through the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, we aim to not only strengthen the arts and technology ecosystem through long-term investment in the individuals and artistic practices that fuel innovation, but also foster a community among artists and cultural workers and continued growth across the field,” said Kristina Newman-Scott, Vice President for Arts at Knight Foundation. “Working across various disciplines and mediums, this year’s Fellowship class offers an examination of how evolving technological systems shape our environments, behaviors and forms of connection. Their work inspires consideration for innovation as a site of relational and communal possibility. We are thrilled to support each of these artists and we welcome their arrival and participation within our community.”
The 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows works across media art, technology, performance and community practice, united by a deep commitment to reimagining technology as a social, cultural and embodied system rather than a purely technical or commercial one. Across their varied practices, their work collectively explores technology’s capacity to function as an active participant in shaping or redefining our human relationships and environments.
The 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows are:
- LIZN’BOW (Miami) – LIZN’BOW (Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty) are a collaborative duo whose practice spans performance, video, music, immersive installation and new media. Rooted in pop aesthetics and cultural critique, their work constructs environments that operate simultaneously as installations, performances and digital interfaces
- Miguel Novelo (San Jose) – Miguel Novelo is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work combines computational media with philosophical inquiry. Novelo’s artistic expressions include sculptures, interactive moving images and immersive installations that make use of computer vision, custom software, photogrammetry and game engines.
- Rhonda Holberton (San Jose) – Rhonda Holberton is a new media artist whose multimedia installations integrate digital and interactive technologies with traditional methods of art production. Through these works, Holberton uses materials and platforms that physically connect human bodies via technology, revealing how the signals of digitally engineered worlds have tangible, destabilizing effects on our planet.
- Taeyoon Choi (Detroit) – Taeyoon Choi is an artist, writer and educator who explores the poetics of technology and human relations. He works with images, text and code oftentimes in collaboration with fellow artists, experts and community members.
- Wesley Taylor (Detroit) – Wesley Taylor is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice combines installation, video art and sound to make a world. His decades-long practice hones the lessons and sharpens sensibilities learned from Detroit artists who came before him, shaping his craft of sampling, referencing and recontextualizing to demonstrate themes of placemaking, histories of entanglement with the present and the future and the necessity of Black imagination.
The 2026 Fellows were selected by Knight Foundation, United States Artists and a national panel of field leaders, including: Mindy Seu, Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Design Media Arts (Los Angeles, CA); Wade Wallerstein, Associate Curator, Gray Area (San Francisco, CA); and Leo Castañeda, Multimedia Artist and Video Game Designer (Miami, FL).
To date, the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship program has awarded 25 artists, each cohort working among various practices, disciplines and mediums, yet remaining grounded in storytelling, speculative thinking, knowledge sharing and education, and community engagement. This year’s cohort continues to reflect that legacy, emboldened by a spirit of collaboration, collectivism and experimentation across art and technology with a shared sense of care and consideration for our communities and environments.
For more information on the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship and the 2026 cohort of recipients, please visit this link.
ABOUT THE JOHN S. and JAMES L. KNIGHT FOUNDATION
We are social investors who support a more effective democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy, and the success of American cities and towns where the Knight brothers once published newspapers. For more, visit kf.org.
ABOUT UNITED STATES ARTISTS
United States Artists plays a pivotal role in America’s cultural ecosystem, advancing the well-being of artists through unrestricted funding and tailored professional services, amplifying artists’ work, and improving conditions that support their essential roles in society. Founded in 2005 and based in Chicago, IL, United States Artists has awarded over 1,000 individuals with over $50 million of direct support across its flagship Fellowship program and its special Initiatives.
USA collaborates with foundations, philanthropists, and other field leaders to create pathways of support for artists across the nation, working closely with our partners to conduct research, design programs, and administer funds in response to their missions and the needs of artists.
ABOUT THE KNIGHT ARTS + TECH FELLOWSHIP
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship in 2021 to celebrate and support artists working with innovative approaches to technology and new media. Knight Arts + Tech Fellows use emerging technologies and media, including software and coding, immersive installation, sound art, bioart, AI, augmented and virtual reality, digital fabrication and more, in thoughtful, radical or poetic ways to expand the field and critically contribute to its discourse. Technology may be a tool, platform, by product or end product within an artist’s practice.
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