Past
Grantees

The artist will travel to Istanbul, Turkey to attend a workshop with the Institute of Islamic Pattern in addition to studying traditional Islamic art and patternmaking through visits to historic sites, museums, and artist studios. She will also engage with the Syrian community, examining communication in a diaspora and seeing how traditions and religious experiences change and morph during times of great disaster.

The artist will travel to Haiti to research the women of Haitian song, exploring their individual stories as they related to Afro-Caribbean culture, society, history and music.

William Johnson, Minnesota, received $20,000 to support the creation two new works: W/LLS, a solo voice and electro-acoustic project connecting American spiritual idioms and contemporary sound design and composition; and Dancing Plague, a sound-based composition for a collaborative theatrical work exploring the Dancing Plague of 1518, a widespread class revolt in Strasbourg that manifested in uncontrollable movement and dancing, and its relevance to America in 2017. Both works are focused on how sound and composition reflect national and transnational constructions of “spirit” and “spirituality” while engaging the contemporary notion of America’s current “spiritual blackout.”

Maria Juranic received $16,000 in support of Welcome to Disneyland, a bittersweet, character-driven short about a young girl, Zora, entering a new, frozen world known as Minnesota. Guided by imagination, Zora’s curiosity and optimism overshadow the unfamiliar as she gracefully falls into her father’s arms. Now, family reunited, she decides to brave the differences and make a new start.

John J. Kaiser received $20,000 in support of Only Dance Can Save Us. Set in the world of contemporary dance, Only Dance Can Save Us is a feature-length drama that explores the ups and downs of the artistic process.

Taous Khazem and Aaron Gabriel will travel to Paris, France and Algiers, Tizi Ouzou, and Oran, Algeria to research Kayle (Berber) folk songs originally sung by women.

Kyle Lavore received $30,000 in support of Blink. In a world where everyone has a quirk that goes away when they are diagnosed with a terminal illness, Blink follows a young woman who can’t blink, who joins forces with an older woman with advanced ALS to explore the idea of assisted suicide and dying with dignity.

Lower East Side Printshop, New York, New York, received $15,000 in support of eight emerging artists for Keyholder Residencies in FY2018.  Artists will receive free studio access for a full year, free materials, technical assistance, stipends, exhibitions, career development workshops, and networking opportunities.

The artist will study in Thailand and Vietnam to learn the delicate and extinct Hmong textile handiwork from a select few remaining Hmong Master Artisans in Southeast Asia in order to expand her creative practice in exploring Hmong cultural identity through textile art.

Jonathan David Martin, Zoey Martinson, and Lianne Arnold will travel to Berlin, Germany as part of the Smoke and Mirrors Collaborative to conduct research and develop relationships with potential collaborators for a new multimedia work of performance.

Media Impact Funders, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, received $2,000 over two years for membership in 2017 and 2018.

The artist will travel to former nuclear testing former nuclear testing and development sites in Nevada and New Mexico to foster a deeper understanding of what it is to live in the nuclear age. This will serve as research for the artist's hand-drawn animation, “Now I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

Minnesota Council on Foundations, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,200 over two years for membership in 2017 and 2018.

Moon Molson received $30,000 in support of Hyper/Space. After years of taking psychiatric medication, Shawn, a Black Millennial living in Spanish Harlem, decides to cease his treatment, questioning whether his neurological disorder even exists. Hyper/Space tracks the ensuing mania that awakens Shawn's burning need to solve the mystery of why his mother abandoned him as a child and committed suicide halfway across the country.

Ekwa Msangi received $30,000, in support of Farewell Amor (working title). After 17 years in exile, Walter finally reunites with his wife and daughter and they quickly discover how the years of separation have turned them into absolute strangers. Farewell Amor is their journey to overcome the personal and political hurdles amongst them and the muscle memory of dance that helps them find their way back “home.”

National Performance Network, including the Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN), New Orleans, Louisiana, received $5,000 to support its regional Minneapolis convening, June 12-14, 2017.

Laura Ortman, New York City, received $20,000 to support the creation of a new collaborative collage, Indigenous New York City Walking Soundtrack, fusing spoken word, song, din, movement, air, whispers and atmosphere, capturing a fluctuating and personal Native American New York experience. She will use the mobile recording unit (MbRU) that she constructed to capture the visceral and atmospheric recordings. Ortman will also travel and perform works from her new solo album My Soul Remainer, recorded by Martin Bis, in the Southwest, California and the East Coast.

The artist will live and study in Chicago, IL to study the Dean C. Worcester Collection of Philippine Photographs, Damián Domingo’s Costume Album, and the book “El folk-lore Filipino” by Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino in the Newberry Library’s extensive Philippine Collection—images from the early years of imperial American conquest of Filipinos.