Camille Cooper

Camille Cooper is a New York–based puppeteer, multidisciplinary artist, and a self-identified transsexual from northern New Mexico. In his site-responsive exhibition SHOWPIECE, the artist renders the Sun Porch into a full insectarium, featuring plants and insects contextual to the grounds of Wave Hill. Drawing on the aesthetic language of mid-20th-century “big bug” horror films, the metaphor of entomological study, and a series of insect puppets fabricated from the packaging of hormone replacement therapy and other trans ephemera, Cooper highlights the ways gender-variant people are scrutinized and classified by society. He describes his aim in doing so as “turning the Sun Porch into a space as lush as the butterfly pavilion at the American Museum of Natural History, but one that, upon closer inspection, reveals a fantastical and creepy-crawly representation of the diversity of gender variance.” SHOWPIECE will be accompanied by a series of live performances. Dates to be announced.

Public Program: Meet the Artist on Sunday, October 4 at 3PM.

Organized by Curator of Visual Arts Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, the Sunroom Project Space is an open call opportunity for emerging, New York-area artists to develop and exhibit a site-specific project as a solo exhibition. The 2026 applications were reviewed by a panel of arts professionals including Klaudia Ofwona Draber, a curator, Strategy Consultant, Director of Programs at Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, and founder of KODA—a social practice residency for mid-career artists; artist Magdalena Dukiewicz (2025 Sunroom Project Space), whose practice is rooted in processes and materials that explore the intersections of the organic and industrial materials; and Gugelberger.