Past
Grantees

A grant was awarded to SARAH FRIEDLAND for Thing With No Name, a feature-length documentary that tracks the rebirth of a rural South African community plagued by AIDS. The film also focuses on an HIV-positive individual's recovery through treatment. The title of the film addresses the fierce taboo and stigma attached to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. This fear of rejection is so paralyzing that the name of the virus is rarely spoken aloud, especially among those who are directly impacted by HIV/AIDS.

Jerome Foundation provided two-years of general support to GRANTMAKERS IN THE ARTS, Seattle, Washington, for a total commitment of $22,000. Grantmakers in the Arts is an affinity group of the Council on Foundations. Its membership includes public and private sector grantmakers as well as individual donors. Its mission is to work within philanthropy to improve society's health by strengthening the role of arts and culture. It promotes discourse and ideas about arts philanthropy within a diverse community of grantmakers. It accomplishes this through publications, conferences and research.

JENNIFER GRAUSMAN received funding for Pressure Cooker, a feature-length documentary that chronicles the senior year of several inner city public high school students as they are transformed by a teacher and her kitchen. Their unorthodox teacher is Wilma Stephenson, a 37-year veteran of Frankford High School. With high expectations, a borderline-ecclesiastical devotion to her students and a boot-camp styled approach, she pushes her students to grow, mature and aspire-both inside and outside the kitchen. Her distinctive personal approach pays off-last year her seniors won over $500,000 in scholarships. And this year she is hoping they earn even more. Pressure Cooker is a coming-of-age story about the slow, sometimes painful, process of learning and becoming. The film speaks to the essence of education.

GRAYWOLF PRESS, St. Paul, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of the publication of books by emerging authors. Graywolf Press is dedicated to the creation and promotion of thoughtful and imaginative contemporary literature essential to a vital and diverse culture. It publishes authors whose work conveys a distinct vision by way of a singular voice and a vigorous engagement with the possibilities of language. It publishes poetry, fiction and literary nonfiction; local as well as national and international writers; and established authors alongside new emerging talents. The Press sells over 80,000 books annually and reaches an estimated audience of 120,000 people. Throughout its history, Graywolf has taken risks on new writers whose readership is unproven. These include first and second book authors for whom Jerome subsidy was awarded. The Press secures opportunities for emerging writers to further their careers and their writing.

HARVESTWORKS, New York City, received $17,000 in support of the creation of new work by emerging artists in the Creative Residencies Program. The programs and services provided by Harvestworks have evolved as aesthetics, practices and technological advances have altered the way artists work. Harvestworks provides equipment, expertise and financial support that artists use to create work in new media. It serves a cross-generational mix of established and emerging artists. Jerome's funding is directed toward the participation of emerging artists in the Creative Residencies Program, which commissions artists and supports them through the production process with a wide array of digital media equipment and the assistance of expert engineers.

JENNIFER HAYASHIDA and BENJAMIN GERDES, New York City, will travel to various locations in Sweden to conduct field and secondary research into the life and significance of The Match King, Swedish industrialist Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932), founder of the match stick empire Swedish Match. This will inform their project Room of the Sun (working title), taken from the name used for the room housing the planetarium Kreuger built in his Park Avenue apartment in New York. The multiple channels and visual/sound overlays of the projected installation are intended to represent the complex linkages between Krueger's economic and political ideologies, and the relationship between Kreuger and light.

IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET AND MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $34,000 in support of the MayDay Mentor Program for emerging artists. Founded in 1973, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre explores and celebrates human experience and the wonders of the world's natural and cultural riches through performance, ceremony and teaching. For 33 years, it has produced an annual MayDay Parade and Festival. The MayDay Mentor Program immerses emerging protg artists in the process of planning and creating ceremonial productions. Protgs receive information about the context, history and process of MayDay; study examples of other creative community-building projects; and receive specialized training in puppetry techniques for large, public outdoor events. They develop leadership skills through coaching as they engage volunteers in MayDay workshop activities. Master mentor and Artistic Director Sandy Spieler oversees the program, pairs mentors and protgs, leads group training sessions and serves as a resource.

HERE ARTS CENTER, New York City, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), which has two primary components: development and production. HERE produces and presents new hybrid performance work, a seamless integration of theatre, dance, music, puppetry and performance art, aimed at reflecting the complex contemporary age of imagery and information. HARP nurtures the artist who takes risks with traditional forms, and who finds inspiration in the active exchange of artistic ideas. Over the one to three-year period of a HARP residency, each artist or collaborative team develops a specific project. HARP encourages entrepreneurial skills that help sustain artistic careers. It operates on the belief that artists must control the work that they create and be able to participate knowledgably in all phases of their projects from inception to full production.

Photographer KRISTINE HEYKANTS, Minnesota, will travel to Italy to compile visual research and glean new subject matter for photographic imagery. She is especially interested in old and deteriorating locations. This trip is designed to inform her ideas about parallels and contradictions between older European culture and contemporary American culture.

The HIGHPOINT CENTER FOR PRINTMAKING, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $32,000 in support of fellowship residencies for emerging printmakers. Highpoint Center is dedicated to advancing the art of printmaking by providing educational programs, access and collaborative publishing opportunities to engage its diverse community of users and to increase public understanding of and appreciation for the printmaking arts. Jerome dollars will be dedicated to the residencies of three emerging Minnesota printmakers, annually selected by a jury from a competitive field of applications. The artists receive access to a fully equipped printshop with technical support, a place where they can create work in all print media including relief woodcut, lithography, intaglio/etching, monoprinting and screenprinting. There is a culminating exhibition as well as group meetings and critiques with three guest artists during the nine-month residencies.

Composer and pipa master GAO HONG, Minnesota, will travel to Beijing and Henan Province, China, to study and document Buddhist temple music at the Zhihua Temple in Beijing and at the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province. Gao Hong wishes to contribute to the preservation of Buddhist Temple music and promote its performance. She will record the music as sung and played by monks, and then transcribe the music and arrange it for pipa, choir and other instruments to promote wider performance and recording.

YOKO INOUE, New York City, will travel to Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia to do preparatory research for the development of a performance and installation art project, which probes the import and export practices associated with Andean wool products and investigates the effect of global trade on native culture. Transmigration of the SOLD is a two-year project that examines how heritage industries can promote stability and positive assimilation for immigrants. A trip to the sources of these industries will enable Inoue to be in direct contact with local makers, especially the women's cooperatives in the Andean regions of the three countries.

A grant was awarded to LOVISA INSERRA for BUSTER, a super-8 feature-length experimental narrative about a man named Buster who spends all his time provoking strangers into fights, then refuses to defend himself as they pummel him until they grow bored. BUSTER is a grifter, sucking his brother dry, and a cancer, sabotaging his brother's relationship with his girlfriend. Think of him as the patron saint of passive aggression, the don of all losers, or maybe just a regular guy who lost his mind trying to avoid growing up. This is also the story of the people who don't run away from Buster.

A second grant of $52,000 was made to INTERMEDIA ARTS in support of the 2008 Writer-to-Writer Mentorship Program, the S.A.S.E./Jerome Fellowships for Writers and the VERVE Awards for Spoken Word Poets. This constellation of three literary/spoken word programs serving emerging artists was originally supported under the auspices of S.A.S.E.: The Write Place. The S.A.S.E./Jerome Fellowships have made it possible for over 70 emerging writers to enhance their literary work and careers in ways that are meaningful to them. Five to seven grants ranging in size from $500 to $5,000 are awarded via an open call and competitive review by an independent panel. Plans for the fellowships are varied and individualized. The Writer-to-Writer Mentorship Program identifies mentors and solicits applications from emerging writers who work with these mentors to develop in skill and confidence, and receive highly individualized attention and learning. The program is offered twice a year, in fall and spring semesters. The VERVE Awards for Spoken Word Poets provide five $3,000 stipends to emerging Minnesota spoken word poets. Selections are made by a nationally recognized spoken word artist. VERVE Awards are used for various purposes specific to the recipients.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $36,000 in support of the 2008 Naked Stages Program. Intermedia is an arts and cultural center, aims to be a catalyst that builds understanding among people through art. Its multidisciplinary format falls into the four broad categories of visual arts, media arts, literary arts and performing arts. Naked Stages responds to the need for mentorship and creative development for emerging performance artists in Minnesota. An open call and panel review result in the selection of four artists or four groups of artists who engage in an extended process of creation, development, critical analysis and workshop production. The program encompasses monthly creative work sessions, critical feedback on works-in-progress, the honing of critical skills, workshops with mentors, monthly production meetings, marketing and technical production assistance, access to equipment and rehearsal space, opportunities to work with directors, and a performance run on a shared evening.

INTAR THEATRE, New York City, received $20,000 in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights in the NewWorks Laboratory. Founded in 1966, INTAR presents Latino adaptations of classics, cabarets and world premieres of plays written by Latino-Americans. It has commissioned, developed and produced works by more than 174 Latino playwrights, composers and choreographers. The NewWorks Laboratory supports the development and production of new works by four or five playwrights each year. Each play is given a one to three week period of development, culminating in two public workshop productions and two public staged readings. The Lab provides a supportive, professional environment that fosters creativity.

THE JAZZ GALLERY, New York City, received $20,000 to commission new works from emerging jazz composers. This artist salon stimulates creative growth and provides an opportunity for artists and audiences to gather in an informal concert setting. Jerome support will be directed to the 2007 Composers' Series, in which six emerging composers will be commissioned to write new extended compositions, or a series of related pieces to be presented at The Jazz Gallery. Once the composers have completed individual performance presentations, a finale will be organized to bring all composers, in pairings of their choosing, to present a series of concerts over three consecutive nights. Master composer Oliver Lake will be available for consultation to the composers.

MARYAM KESHAVARZ received support for a feature-length documentary called Persian Fashionistas: A New Generation of Revolutionaries. The film looks into the lives of a select group of Tehrani youth struggling to attain freedom under the conservative watch of the Iranian government. These youth represent a generation that has grown tired of restriction and is using fashion as a form of political resistance.

SWATI KHURANA, New York City, will travel to The Gambia, Senegal and Ghana, meeting artists, arts professionals, students and scholars, and researching how popular culture impacts visual culture. Her work mines personal narratives and explores immigrant issues with a focus on gender, rituals and the seductive promises made by popular culture. She is specifically interested in how Bollywood cinema is received in places outside of India. She will take video footage and digital photographs for her library of source materials, including images of traditional ceremonies and motifs on objects.

ANDREW J. KOEHLER was awarded a grant for List of Schindler?s Part 1, an experimental series of six short live action/animated films that revel in a world of guided mistranslation. Using a very specific process of translation and retranslation, Koehler has taken the script from Schindler's List and twisted it beyond recognition. From there, form is given to the mangled words that are now devoid of identifiable characters, events and even sentence structure. This film series is about the delicate balance of language and intent, and what happens when both are thrown forcefully out of whack. Koehler hijacks the language of the original script and transforms it, building an entirely different creature that abides by none of the rules of the physical world, as we know it. List of Schindler?s serves as an irreconcilable contrast to Schindler's List, which Koehler expects will produce a more profound effect on an audience that has some stake in its relationship to the source material.