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Artist-in-Residence Program
Exploring Artistic Visions Along the Erie Canal
The Erie Canal Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program invites artists to explore the past, present, and future of this iconic waterway through their unique artistic lenses. A partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum, the AIR program is a celebration of creativity, history, and stewardship.
The program supports the revitalization of the Erie Canal by blending art with storytelling to illuminate its cultural, environmental, and historical significance. Through exhibitions, events, and public programs, the AIR program brings new perspectives to the Canal's lasting impact on New York State and the nation.
We are thrilled to welcome the 2026 Artists-in-Residence, Hannah Smith Allen and Z Behl, who will begin their year-long exploration of the Erie Canal. Stay tuned for updates on their journey!
Now Open
Explore “Canal as Collaborator,” On View Through September 27
The Canal as Collaborator exhibition, created by the Erie Canal Museum in partnership with the NYS Canal Corporation, is now open and on view through September 27, 2026.
Stop in to explore how today’s artists are examining the relationship between the historic New York State Canal System and our shared ecological future.
This year’s Artists‑in‑Residence, Kari Varner and Sarah Cameron Sunde, spent the past year immersing themselves in the landscapes, communities, and stories of the canal corridor. Varner’s photographic works incorporate plants gathered from key ecological sites along the canal, while Sunde’s interdisciplinary pieces, developed in collaboration with Shinnecock photographer Jeremy Dennis and canal communities, invite viewers to consider the physical and environmental connections that shape the waterway today.
Whether you're a canal enthusiast, an art lover or simply curious, the exhibition offers a fresh perspective on one of New York’s most enduring and innovative public works.
Where to Visit:
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Boulevard East
Syracuse, NY 13202
The exhibition is open during regular Museum hours. We hope you stop by and enjoy this unique blend of art, history and the evolving story of our canals.
2026 Artists-in-Residence
Hannah Smith Allen
Hannah Smith Allen is a multidisciplinary artist working in photography, text, printmaking, book arts, and moving images. Her work explores how American history and lore shape the landscape and its people. It has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationwide. Allen’s book Borderlands (2021, VSW Press) is held in major collections across the country, including Columbia University, UCLA Arts Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. She has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Aaron Siskind Foundation and has participated in residencies at the Lower East Side Printshop, Vermont Studio Center, and Visual Studies Workshop. Allen is an Associate Professor of Photography and Digital Media at Adelphi University.
During the Erie Canal Residency, Allen will create site-responsive collages that explore the landscape as a political space. Using original photographs, vernacular images, and archival materials, she will compress past and present, geography, and politics into unique works that confront the canal’s complex histories and ongoing tensions. By charting the stories of Feminists, Abolitionists, Immigrant Laborers, and Native Communities, her work will examine how industrial ambition, displacement, and social reform converged to shape both the landscape and the broader American story.
Z Behl
Z Behl is a visual artist from New York who works across sculptural installation, performance, and film. Culling myths to narrativize trickster archetypes exploring gender and power, Z is concerned with chaos, attachment, and the role of the artist as world-breaker / re-maker.
She is a MacDowell Fellow and has exhibited at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, CAC New Orleans, Wassaic Project, Mana Contemporary, and performed at PIONEER WORKS.
During this residency, Behl and a friend will canoe the completion of the Erie Canal, camping along the way and carrying a symbolic sack of flour, timber, coal and salt. As the duo re-traces the old towpaths, they will interview locals and cull stories of labor, folklore and endurance. The work—embodying the vessel, becoming the mule—positions the woman's body as both engine and storyteller in the landscape of American labor and forsaken industrial dreams.
