Past
Grantees

Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, Minnesota, received $39,000 in support of the 2018 Emerging Artist Fellowship Program, providing residency and installation opportunities to six emerging three-dimensional artists from Minnesota and New York City to create large-scale sculpture to be exhibited at Franconia's 43-acre sculpture park.

The artist will travel to the Venice Art Biennale, Documenta 14, Sculpture Project Munster, EKSIG Alive. Active. Adaptive Conference, and Dutch Design Week. Collectively, these experiences will help her gather information about contemporary art, design, and materials in order to inform her works going forward.

Grantmakers in the Arts, Bronx, New York, received a two-year grant of $22,000 in support of programs, services, and annual membership for 2018 and 2019.

Stephanie Griffin, New York City, received $20,000 to support her research with composers and instrumentalists and work on several new compositions. She will complete her composition of The Lost String Quartet, an original theatrical string quartet performance piece based on N.M. Bodecker’s delightful illustrated children’s book in collaboration with the Mexican theater director Fernando Villa Proal and experimental instrument builder Michael Evans. She will also finalize her composition and score of Greener Hills, recently commissioned by Daniel Goode and his Flexible Orchestra and begin work on a new graphic score for Walter Ruttmann’s film Lichtspiel Op. 1.

The artist will travel to New York City to attend the Funny School of Good Acting for a four-week intensive advanced clown workshop as a continuation of work undertaken in 2015 with instructor Christopher Bayes.

The artist will travel to Berlin for intensive interview-based research in preparation for a series of works about the displacement of Syrian refugees, and Berlin's changed role as a destination for refugees rather than a place to flee.

Abrons Arts Center, New York, New York, (the performing and visual arts center of Henry Street Settlement) received $21,000 in support of three commissioned projects by emerging performing artists in 2017-18. The selected choreographers receive a year of residency time to develop and present new work.

The curator will strengthen and deepen her practice through an immersive study of the Syzygy collection of works on paper, traveling to New York City, and Boulder and Denver, Colorado, to study it in various contexts—in archive and in exhibition.

The artist would take part in the Arctic Circle Residency to engage in climate-related issues and build on the collaborations between other professionals in order to create tools that could enrich the public's experience of visiting the NYC Watershed model at the Queens Museum (where she current works).

The artist will travel to Xiamen, Beijing, and Shanghai, China to meet relatives and study Chinese culture in order to expand knowledge of Chinese culture and tell more authentic, resonant mixed-race stories.

Ibrahim will travel to London, England to attend the Somali Week Festival, meeting with leaders in the Somali community and prominent Somali artists and learning about work happening in Somali diaspora communities in other parts of the world.

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.