Past
Grantees

Roulette Intermedium received $140,000 ($70,000 per year for two years) to support commissioning and residency programs for emerging composers based in New York City.

Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, received $51,500 over two years in support of The Saint John's Pottery's Emerging Artist in Residence Program in 2017 and 2018.

Till Schauder, New York City, received $15,000 to support the production of the feature-length (90-minute) narrative film When God Sleeps, that depicts the true story of Iranian musician Shahin Najafi, who is forced into hiding after hardline clerics offer a $100,000 reward for his murder.

James Sewell Ballet, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $22,600 over two years to support new works by emerging artists in the Ballet Works Project for 2017 and 2018.

Norah Shapiro, Minnesota, received $30,000 to support Time for Ilhan (working title), a documentary telling the story of rising political star Ilhan Omar, a liberal, Hijab-wearing Somali-American immigrant mother of 3. She battles a white female 43–year incumbent as well as a male Somali contender for a hotly contested seat in the Minnesota State Legislature to become the first Muslim African-Immigrant woman elected to state office in the United States.

Anurag Sharma, Minnesota, received $5,000 to travel to New Delhi to research and study traditional Kathak dance with Pandit Birju Maharaj and his disciples at the world-renowned Kalashram dance school.

Fern Silva, New York City, received $25,000 in support of Rock Bottom Riser, an experimental film based around the world’s most active volcano, Kilauea. As lava continues to flow from the earth’s core on the island of Hawaii–posing an imminent danger–an existential crisis mounts for native Hawaiians: astronomers plan to build the world’s largest telescope on the burial grounds of their most sacred and revered ancestors.

Miguel Silveira, New York City, received $20,000 to support the production of American Thief, a feature-length (90-minute) narrative that follows Toncruz, a green-eyed African American teenager and master hacker, as he searches for reparation for what’s been done to his family.

Sonejuhi Sinha, New York City, received $15,000 in support of Stray Dolls, a suspenseful drama about a young South Asian woman, Riz, who enters America illegally, desperate to start her life over. In order to survive she starts working at a middle of the road motel in New Jersey, where the lives of immigrant women, drug dealers and loan sharks collide.

Smack Mellon, New York City, received $44,000 over two years in support of emerging New York City-based artists’ participation in the Artist Studio Program in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York, received $50,000 over two years in support of the Emerging Artist Fellows Program for 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Soho Repertory Theatre (Soho Rep), New York City, received $40,000 over two years in support of new play commissioning, development and production for emerging New York City-based artists in 2016-17 and 2017-18.

 Monica Sok, New York City, received $2,000 to research spiritual life during the Khmer Rouge regime by visiting Angkor Wat and working on her full-length poetry manuscript about the Cambodian genocide.

Emily Strasser, Minnesota, received $2,000 to travel to Oak Ridge, Tennessee to research the mercury contamination caused by Cold War era nuclear weapons production, a process overseen by Strasser's grandfather, and to travel to Radford, Virginia to visit the St. Alban’s sanitarium where he spent several extended periods in treatment for severe mental illness.

Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, Brooklyn, New York, received $46,000 over two years to support Streb Lab for Action Mechanics' GO! Emerging Artist Commissioning Program in 2017 and 2018.

Studio Museum in Harlem received $38,000 ($19,000 per year for two years) to support the Artists-in-Residence Program for 2017 and 2018.

Springboard for the Arts, as fiscal sponsor for SuperGroup, received $12,500 to support the development and production of HOT LIQUID CONTAINERS.

KIRSTEN TAN was awarded $25,000 in support of the narrative project POP AYE. On a chance encounter, a disenchanted architect bumps into his long-lost elephant on the streets of Bangkok. Excited, he takes his elephant on a redemptive journey across Thailand, in search of the farm where they grew up together–only to discover the truth about himself and the life he callously left behind.

Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, Minnesota, received $3,700 to travel to Trinidad to participate in the New Waves! Institute to study traditional and contemporary Afro-Caribbean dance and culture among an international pool of artists, teachers and students.

The TEAM received $24,000 ($12,000 per year for two years) to support the development and production of Primer For A Failed Superpower.