A commemorative sculpture for the memories of the queer and BIPOC community, nationally, locally and within the artist's experience. 

Dance in Place | 12' x 10' x 6' | Aluminum and Steel | 2025 

Composite Digital Image | Dimensions Vary | Site of Photograph: Passage des Panoramas, Paris, France

Notes on Dancer:
Born in 2001 in Kankan, Guinea (Conakry), Karim Sylla began dancing at the age of eight in the streets of his hometown. In 2014, he left his family, who opposed his dancing, and relocated to Bissau in 2016. There, he joined the Nétos de Bandim dance troupe, traveling with the group to Senegal and Portugal before moving to Paris in 2017. As the troupe’s lead dancer, Sylla’s pose informed one of the figures in Dance in Place.

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The poses are drawn from the artist’s photographs of dancers in DC’s Capitol Pride Parade and others from Nétos de Bandim in Paris, France. 

Many of the reference images were taken in the days following widespread media coverage of the Pulse Nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. Additional visual references in the sculpture include motifs drawn from a dress Angela Davis wore during the trials concerning her alleged involvement with the Soledad Brothers, as well as an encoded representation of O’Shae Sibley.

Templates for the clothing panels were supplied as blank template coloring books for workshop participants to add various designs. Over 3 dozen designs were created by participants ages 7 and up, primarily in workshops organized in 2025 by the artist with Vermont organizations such as the Education Justice Coalition, Burlington City and Lake, and the Clemmons Family Farm.

Dance in Place Figure | 6' x 3' x 2" | Aluminum | 2025 

The Vermont Queer Archives contributed source material in the form of print graphics, including lettering from 1970s posters and ephemera from 135 Pearl’s, an iconic LGBTQ+ bar and queer performance space. The text "Gay Dance" is redesigned as a wispy offset red panel for the pants.  

An ode to 135 Pearl's, an iconic gay bar from the late 20th century, is clutched between two fingers of the Unity Player. The text comes from a poster design from University of Vermont's 1974 Gay Student Union,

I was invited by the Clemmons Family Farm to present and give a workshop for participant designs for the various panels of the artwork. The Clemmons Family Farm in Shelburne, Vermont, is a multigenerational Black-owned farm that serves as a community-centered space to connect cultural history, land stewardship, and racial equity. Artists often collaborate with the farm through community-centered, interdisciplinary work that bridges agriculture, education, and creative expression.

The sculpture honors and celebrates Burlington’s queer community, and features designs by students from the 14th session of Burlington City & Lake. The students contributed to the colors and design of the sculpture. The Burlington City & Lake and Education Justice Coalition are two of the community-led alliances that particiapated during the spring of 2025. Both non-profits bring together educators, youth, artists, and organizers to address systemic inequities through advocacy, public programming, and place-based initiatives connected to Lake Champlain.

"Dance in Place" is a large-scale outdoor figurative sculpture fabricated from aluminum cut panel (3/8 and 3/4-inch) and rolled steel pipe (2-1/2 and 5-inch). The piece features silhouettes of seven dancers interwoven into a dynamic composition atop a concrete platform. The sculpture's aluminum surfaces are offset by additional panels all fully finished in automotive-grade solvent paints and sealed with a 5-7 layers of clear coating for protection against UV, abrasion, and chemical exposure. 

Curator's Statement

For this series, Kojzar draws his public surroundings until a stranger interrupts him, thus marking the drawing complete. In each title, the artist takes a notable phrase overheard, the location in which it takes place and the time until the interruption.

Originating from an anti-terrorist policy that specifies sketching floorplans and prolonged observation as 'suspicious activity', Kojzar accesses the outside world by being in a shared public space on three continents.

Accompanying the Drawing in Public Series is Recorded Interactions, which consists of audio taken from these exchanges, at times reinterpreted through an AI language bot. A cassette player adjacent to the drawings allows visitors to listen to the interactions. 

"What's goin on, man, we're just curious what yer drawin'," at the Capitol

2025

Drawings on paper with audio recording

12" x 12"

time til interaction = 93 minutes

"peux-je le voir?" in Cannes. 

 2020 

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 72 minutes

"He's a fucking terrorist!" in Burlington, VT.  

2022 

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 60 minutes

"is that freehand?" in New Haven, CT. 

 2024 

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 99 minutes

"- - à quoi t’as fait? Je t'ai vu tout à l'heure," in Paris. 

2019

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 108 minutes

“UAW picket line,” in Detroit.

2019

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = n/a

“T'as pas vu de portefeuille?” in Montreal. (time ‘til interaction = 134 minutes)
2024
Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 134 minutes

“it’s my gift to gab,” in Washington DC.

2024  

Drawing on paper under artist-framed acrylic in wood
18 inches in diameter
time ‘til interaction = 114 minutes
 

Recorded Interactions — 2024 — Cassette Audio Player with Tape — 50-minute double-sided cassette tape

Accompanying the Drawing in Public Series is Recorded Interactions, which consist of audio taken from these exchanges, at times reinterpreted through an AI language bot. 

The documentation in this project portfolio shows "Home in Sight" prior to install in the process of fabrication. The dedication ceremony will take place in the late spring of 2026. The memorial plaza and surrounding park note the legal and social barriers that challenged the Venable family in the 1950s. 

Despite Dr. Venable’s socio-economic standing and accomplishments, even he could not escape the discriminatory housing market after the City of Creve Coeur forced him off his property under the guise of eminent domain laws. With the support of his family and colleagues, he fought the legal system to keep his home. His story inspires us to consider specific materials, symbols, and forms so the public can access, reflect upon, and recognize the history of Dr. H. Phillip Venable Memorial Park in Creve Coeur, Missouri.

- Studio Projects Collaboration with Oletha DeVane - 

Home in Sight | 12 x 12 x 12' | Steel and Glass | 2026 

“Home in Sight” symbolically tells the story of Dr. Howard Phillip Venable and his rise above obstructions of justice. An instrument known as the ophthalmic lens flipper has been multiplied to form a divided entry point, letting visitors stand between over two-hundred flippers and glass lenses, honoring Dr. Venable as a visionary medical doctor.  

Home in Sight | 12 x 12 x 12' | Steel and Glass | 2026 

"Home in Sight" prior to install in the process of fabrication. 

Glass rondels designed as an interpretation of Dr. Venable's house from newspaper clippings.  The lens flippers is oriented vertically to build the sculpture's structure

Home in Sight | 12 x 12 x 12' | Steel and Glass | 2026

My rendering for the final design to assemble the sculpture.

We’re here at Making Space Be More, a collaborative printmaking facility off Howard Street. This screenprint serves as a template for a steel medallion installed at the base of the Dr. Venable memorial, Home in Sight, to be installed outside St. Louis, Missouri. At Making Space Be More, the collaborative process brings together digital collage, painting, and drawing, incorporating materials ranging from photographs and newspaper clippings to found objects.

Home in Sight Medallion | 2026

Cast Steel

50 inches

The center medallion symbolizes the spiral pathway to home, reflecting life's journey.  Designs reference highways that cut through black neighborhoods nationwide as well as archived aerial maps of the park. It overlays distinct representations of the home with keys, fabric, and sweetgum balls embedded as patterns.   African fabrics illustrate a cultural relationship.  The lightest values indicate minimal cut, while the darkest values indicate the deepest groove.  A center black circle is an iris that fans into sweet gum balls.

Interview with Dr. Howard Phillip Venable 

Digital Commons Site (Washington University Medical Center Desegregation History Project) 

1 hour and 16 minutes

Dr. Howard Phillip Venable grew up in Windsor, Ontario and trained as an ophthalmologist. In his oral history, he speaks about confronting segregation in both hospitals and housing, describing how discrimination shaped his work and life. Dr. Venable’s legacy includes establishing a student research fund to support Black medical scholars.

Ophthalmic lens flippers emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as essential tools in eye examinations. They consist of hinged frames holding paired corrective lenses, allowing eye doctors to rapidly “flip” between lenses while asking patients which view appears clearer. The project incorporates cast glass out of Tim McFadden's Baltimore glass studio. The molten glass naturally holds distorted irregularities.

Ark and the Dove

Graphite on Paper 

24" diameter | 2025

This drawing communicates the Ark and the Dove’s original 1634 landing with three passengers: John Price, Mimus and Mathias de Sousa. The small boat in the foreground reflects Mathias de Sousa's position within the colony as the first documented person of African descent to live in colonial Maryland. Although he arrived with the founding expedition, historical documents fade him from record.

Parc des Buttes Chaumont wasn’t here (to see outside)
2023
Watercolor pencil on paper

This drawing explores the quotidian nature of travel and displacement. The sitters, artists Dieb Oroubah and Mohammed Salem Dighya, were both forced to flee in their homelands of Syria and Western Sahara, respectively. They pose with a tower finder, commonly placed in tourist destinations with origins from Norfolk, Connecticut. Here, Kojzar captures this scene as Oroubah and Dighya use this tower finder to view the Eiffel Tower in Paris where they currently reside. Parc des Buttes Chaumont wasn’t here (to see outside) reflects on the unspoken ways people and things find their way in a place. 

Home in site (sic) (I)
2024
Rasterized Digital Print with Ink Wash
28 x 20 inches

Home in site (I) references the civil rights sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois's infographic drawings. Using the original listings of assessed Black American wealth in Georgia from the 1900s, I focus on six prominent cases in the U.S. from the Civil War onward. This work is a reflection on the concept of reparative justice rather than traditional reparations. The overlay of "eye flippers" serve as a symbol for Black ophthalmologist Howard Phillip Venable, whose relatives sought to reclaim his land after many years. It's the representation for the sculpture "Home in Sight".

1890, the title's piece references the year that civil rights sociologist WEB Dubois compiled data for his infographic drawings, which he presented at the Paris Exposition Universelle. Displayed at the Unrested Exhibition at Julio Fine Arts Gallery, Loyola University

Monotypes with AR Component — Use of a tablet to reveal original 1890 WEB Dubois infographics in augmented reality.

Fastest Growing Continent

2024
Digital Print with Ink Wash and Marker
28 x 20 inches

Top African Artists on Spotify

2024
Digital Print with Ink Wash and Marker
28 x 20 inches
 

Landholder Graph

2024
Digital Print with Ink Wash and Marker
28 x 20 inches

Unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (I)

2023

Graphite on paper

28 x 30 inches

Unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (II)

2023

Graphite on paper

28 x 30 inches

The Jewish Museum of Maryland invites visitors to "Next Generations: Turning the Page", and exhibition designed and realized by strikeWare. Each pedestal carries a hand-drawn cartography adapted from the Sanborn public archive, while a room-scale map fills the floor. Cyanotype cards, colored acrylic building blocks, and 3D printed architectural forms are paired with an interactive augmented reality app that directs oral histories from the museum.

emblems and pins to print and pattern 

Silkscreen on fabric with white acrylic hangers  

 3' x 28" x 20"

2025

Two patterned scarves hang from white acrylic hangers, each printed with silkscreened emblems and pin-inspired motifs. Rendered in red on white fabric, the designs draw from objects such as the papercuts,  a Jews of Color pin, a gold Acorn pin, and other archival references. Draped over a pedestal, the textiles echo the visual language of memorabilia and garment history, connecting personal adornment to Baltimore’s broader histories of labor and identity. 

Links to referenced artwork and memorabilia:  

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/photos/68731

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/objects/12214

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/objects/11942

https://jewishmuseummd.catalogaccess.com/objects/4048

Those pediment and portico footprints

3D print over vinyl-wrapped Pedestal 

44" x 28" x 28" | 2025

What architecture's at Hagia Sofia, was remembered in Florence, at the doors of Eutaw Place Temple

Acrylic cut-outs over vinyl-wrapped Pedestal

 50" x 28" x 28" | 2025

Sculptures at times refer to buildings that Baltimore’s Black community claim after mid-20th century white flight.

"Next Generations: Turning the Page (Migration)” is a conceptual reinterpretation of migration patterns of Jews in Baltimore. The exhibition reorients visuals found in the Museum's collections and its publication “Generations,” sourcing articles and objects to reveal issues like healthcare, leisure, activism, education, and architecture. This is a strikeWare Collective exhibition.   

There was particluar interest to research how Jewish migration mirrored and diverged from Black segregation throughout Baltimore in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more acutely, how Jewish land developers and businesses both challenged and reinforced discrimination.  Antero Pietila's 'Not in my Neighborhood' and Dara Horn’s “People Love Dead Jews” are just a couple nodes of research that were paired along with the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s “Generations” publication and their decades-long collection of artifacts.

Mt Sinai Hospital

A bright blue acrylic silhouette of a historic building rises from a pedestal layered with maps and archival fragments. The form functions as a memory-marker of Baltimore's first Jewish hospital. 

Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York was a established in 1852 by German Jewish immigrants. At that time, Jewish doctors were routinely denied positions in mainstream hospitals, and Jewish patients often faced unequal or discriminatory treatment. In response, the community came together to build its own hospital, known as the Jews’ Hospital in the City of New York. Over time, Mt. Sinai grew into a regional, widely recognized medical institution.

These works are based on historic Sanborn fire insurance maps, which are used as precise records of building footprints, zoning, and infrastructure to anchor the imagery in documented urban conditions. By wrapping the pedestal with the map, the sculpture is physically and conceptually placed within a specific site, making the base an extension of the mapping system rather than a neutral support.

Host: Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM).
Topic: A history of the Generations publication and a panel discussion about the "Next Generations: Turning the Page" exhibition.
Speakers:
History: Deb Weiner (Historian & former Generations co-editor).
Curators: Rachel B. Gross, Zoe Friedman, Christopher Kojzar, Mollye Bendell (strikeWare Collective).
Moderator: Rebecca Uchill (Exhibition Advisor). 

Visitors in the Gallery (photo credit for images: Sid Keiser)

unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (III) |  Aluminum, foamboard, wood, acrylic — 18 x 25 x 20 inches — 2023

Excerpt from "If Work," Curator Statement — Many artists in If Work return to objects themselves as implicit sites of both play and work by foregrounding themes of process, materiality, experimentation, and performance. Others marshal forms such as the comic book or public sculpture to surface counter-histories of collective, collaborative labor. Though they embrace a range of conceptual tactics and media, what all share is a concern for the interactions between artmaking and the social, intellectual, and political systems in which art operates. Indeed, the debates articulated by Bryan-Wilson in Art Workers are germane to our contemporary era. Though their contours have changed, the unionization drives; ascendence of liberation movements; critiques of capitalism; and proposals for radically alternative modes of living remain relevant to the current climate.

unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (III) 

Aluminum, foamboard, wood, acrylic — 18 x 25 x 20 inches — 2023

unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (III) 

Aluminum, foamboard, wood, acrylic — 18 x 25 x 20 inches — 2023

Rendering for Public Art Proposal | 2025

Dance in Place (somewhere in the summer, sometime outside)

 2024 — Aluminum, light, MDF, enamel, acrylic — 14 x 20 x 8"

Dance in Place (somewhere in the summer, sometime outside)

 2024 — Aluminum, light, MDF, enamel, acrylic — 14 x 20 x 8"

Dance in Place (somewhere in the summer, sometime outside)

 2024 — Aluminum, light, MDF, enamel, acrylic — 14 x 20 x 8"

Dance in Place — 2024 — artist render (dimensions variable) — Render for Open Call for the "Great Street Initiative" in Burlington, VT 

McDonoghville, Saint Gême, and Allard Plantations:

This artistic render hints at the architectural identity of such a space where enslaved  persons labored on John McDonogh's farm to harvest cash crops such as sugar cane and tobacco.  Realized for the McDonogh Memorial to Those Enslaved and Freed (Lead Artist Oletha DeVane) 

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Displayed as part of  Dispersive Archives Vol. 2 
Friday, January 14 • 5-9pm | Ongoing through February 14
@ Eubie Blake Cultural Center, hosted by Waller Gallery

Featuring Artists: Nakeya Brown, Safiya Cheatham, Chris Kozjar, and Savannah Wood

January 14 – February 14, 2022
Opening Reception: Friday, January 14 from 5-9pm
Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Friday and Saturday 11-3pm

Medium: Engraved Steel

Dimensions: 38" x 28" x 2"
2022

Location:
Owings Mills, MD

 Christopher Kojzar served as the alternate artist to draft drawings for the plaques.  Lead Artist: Oletha DeVane 

1850

2024 | 272 bricks, pens, and quilt | Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

This piece, Kojzar explained, “was to honor my great-great grandmother. It brings in the personal nature of where we stand today, where I stand, where she once stood, and how her history is only kept through the continuance of family. It is [about the] passing on to generations in the future.” - Virtual Reality and Cutting Edge Interactivity at Loyola’s Julio Gallery | Words: Adriana Vélez

1850 was activated at the opening of Unrested as visitors picked up bricks and wrote messages prompted by phrases such as “Dear Ancestor,” “Dear Future Self,” and “Dear Future Generations.” The 272 bricks reference the hundreds of people the Jesuit community treated as chattel in order to fund their collegiate enterprise. The quilt atop the stacked bricks was made by the artist’s grandmother, three generations removed. The work is informed by Sonya Clark’s Edifice and Mortar.

1850 | 2024 | 272 bricks, pens, and quilt | Pick a brick, write a note, and place back on the ground.

1850 | 2024 | 272 bricks, pens, and quilt

1850 | 2024 | 272 bricks, pens, and quilt

1850 | 2024 | 272 bricks, pens, and quilt

Exhibition 

9.    Title: fly by shy guy | Medium: mixed media | Dimensions: 98” x 46”

I wait to see him. A rather important man. Slouch in leather chairs. Four dudes sit and speak. Broken french rolls off their tongues. Idle romantics. Two cops and a man. All wearing plainclothes, they talk. Money exchanged hands. I kept my head down. As a drunk man approached me. “You'll be fine,” he said. Step outside to smoke. And a friend comes from nowhere. Cigarette stories. Warm breeze hits my face. from public transportation. Quick glimpse, working class. Parallel parking, I'm outside of a Whole Foods. Can't afford my spot.

strong 'man' pose

2019

pen on vellum over artist framed light box.

 68" x 44"

While Van der Weyde’s photograph of Sandow on his theatrical pedestal was the first in which he was posed to expose the size and solidity of his muscles, particularly his biceps, it was also the first in a long series of photographs of Sandow posed naked with a fig-leaf. The homoerotic connotations of Sandow’s stage performativity and his photography seemed to have been well recognized by homosexual communities. While there was a growing market amongst ‘young ladies’ for the hand-size, card-back cabinet photos supplied by Sarony, Steckel and Falk, a considerable number of their male mail-order subscribers seemed to have been homosexuals, particularly those in London where there was a growing subcultural network who exchanged photos of male nudes exuding Aestheticist homoeroticism, including Lord Alfred Douglas, Edmund Gosse, Andre ́ Raffalovich and John Addington Symonds.  (Brauer, Fae. Virilizing and Valorizing Homoeroticism: Eugen Sandow's Queering of Body Cultures Before and After the Wilde Trials. Visual Culture in Britain 18.1 (2017): 35-67).
 

Another View of the Clayborn Temple | Sculpture with 360° video and audio | Dimensions: 16” x ¾” | Duration: 10 minutes

Participants are invited to hold the work and look around. Audio sourced from interviews of a documentary produced by AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees).
 

Video for interactive sculpture

Exploring a Monument Park
2023
Virtual Reality Environment, VR Headset
6 minutes, 34 seconds

Exploring a Monument Park brings Kojzar’s drawings and sculpture of "unclaimed scarves on signposts as are dreams caught in pages (I - III)" into room-scaled reality. Through the possibilities of virtual reality, Kojzar reimagines the gray graphite and aluminum of the drawings and diorama in the distance and the limitations of public art. While many displays of monuments and memorials fade into the background of one’s daily life, Exploring a Monument Park immerses the viewer in the possibilities of art integrated into a destination. The headset becomes a monument for public spaces that do not exist. 
 

The visualization first found inspiration from unrealized monument projects, interviews with Daniel Comegys and audio content referencing Veronica Tyler and activist Ms. Pauli Murray. Daniel Comegys trained at the Baltimore Institute of Musical Arts, a school founded in the 1940s to provide Black students access to music education that the segregated Peabody Conservatory then denied. Veronica Tyler was a Baltimore-born lyric soprano who rose to prominence in the 60s, performing on televised concerts like Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. Pauline “Pauli” Murray  became a seminal figure in Civil Rights, feminist theory, and legal scholarship. S/he was a lawyer, author, poet, teacher, and Episcopal priest whose work helped expand legal protections against racial and gender discrimination.

Omission, 2019, Book with AR Component and excerpt of documented performance, (Dimensions: 24” x 12”), Total Runtime – 2 hours : 42 minutes

This piece responds to research that deals with a multi-layered overlap between Christianity, slavery, and education.  The idea to cut an actual Bible was generated while considering what it means for any book to be redacted or misinterpreted.

In this work, a King James Version of the Bible is cut as a gesture towards the omissions of “Parts of the Holy Bible, selected for the use of the Negro Slaves, in the British West-India Islands,” which was originally published in 1807. Unlike other missionary bibles, the Slave Bible’s British publishers deliberately removed almost 90 percent of the book, essentially any passage that could inspire hope for liberation. Omission was first performed in New England, then displayed as video at the Renovations exhibit at the Carroll Mansion. The artefact (the mangled book) was on display as two sections (what was and wasn’t omitted from the slave bible) for visitors to leaf through. 

 Performance | Excerpt Runtime: approx 10 minutes | Performance Duration 2 hours : 42 minutes | 2019

Omission | ongoing (2020,2023) | 2 Bibles, X-acto knives  

An invitation for others to take part in the cutting | Unrested exhibition at the Julio Fine Arts Gallery