BERLIN RESIDENT - 2025

Martha Hipley

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Martha Hipley is a writer and filmmaker working in fiction and moving image. Her work examines creative labor, ambition, and value in contemporary art worlds, with a focus on power, gender, and visibility. She is currently completing her debut novel, New Work, a darkly comic literary thriller set in the New York art world during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Her work has been developed through international residencies and workshops including Disquiet International, Joya AiR, Turning Points, and lagos | Berlin.

Work at lagos | Berlin

During her residency at lagos | Berlin, Hipley revised New Work, a novel-in-progress exploring artistic mentorship, market pressure, and the ethics of creation. The residency supported a structural revision of the manuscript, with particular focus on voice, escalation, and the relationship between violence and artistic production.

Working at a distance from the novel’s New York setting allowed for a recalibration of tone and pacing, as well as a sharpening of its conceptual stakes. Research during the residency drew on artist manifestos, interviews with working artists, and writing on value and labor. The multidisciplinary context of lagos | Berlin provided a critical framework aligned with the novel’s concerns, reinforcing its engagement with both literary and contemporary art discourse.

Selected Publications