Past
Grantees

JAMIE SISLEY received support for the feature-length (80-minute) documentary Farewell Ferris Wheel, that explores the economic benefits and human rights issues associated with bringing legal migrant workers into the U.S. It does this through the lens of the American Carnival. Over the past two centuries, the carnival has been woven into the fabric of the American experience. However, rising expenses and changing domestic labor habits have made it difficult for U.S. carnivals to remain in business. The need for reliable labor coupled with rising overhead has caused employers to find workers outside of U.S. borders. Today, eighty percent of all carnival workers are Mexican citizens who legally travel north for the eight-month carnival season, and then return home. Astonishingly, one third of the workers come from the same small Mexican town – Tlapacoyan, Veracruz. After receiving complaints about abusive work conditions found in industries that use H-2B work visas (the visas used by Mexican carnival workers), the Department of Labor issued new rules that would raise wages and protect H-2B workers from potential exploitation. The carnival industry’s employment recruiter, Jim Judkins, protested that a wage increase would put the carnivals out of business. By hiring a lobbyist and establishing a Political Action Committee (PAC), Judkins and the country’s carnival owners pressured Congress to reject the new wage increases and worker protections. Farewell Ferris Wheel spends six years following the carnival industry’s H-2B struggles through the eyes of Jim Judkins and a carnival owner from Maryland, as well as two carnival workers from Tlapacoyan.

KARINA AGUILERA SKVIRSKY received support for The Perilous Journey of Maria Palacios, a 20-minute black and white experimental film re-enacting one woman’s 1906 journey from the Valle del Chota, the Afro-Ecuadorian region in the state of Imbabura, to the coastal city of Guayaquil. As a teenage Afro-Ecuadorian girl from the Valle del Chota, Skvirsky’s great-grandmother, Maria Rosa Palacios, journeyed to the coastal metropolis of Guayaquil to work as a domestic servant for a wealthy family. She traveled on foot and by mule through the perilous Andean mountains until reaching Guayaquil. For the working class of Ecuador, this story of migration is commonplace. People from the interior of the country often make the journey to metropolitan centers to find employment. What makes Palacio’s story so compelling is that it occurred before the national railway was constructed; more precisely, her journey took place while the railway was being built by a North American engineering team of brothers, John and Archer Harman. The Harman brothers were contracted by the Ecuadorian President, Eloy Alfaro, at the end of nineteenth century. The Perilous Journey of Maria Rosa Palacios examines different aspects of geographic place, historical time, and the nature of the archival document. By telling the story of Maria Rosa Palacios, whose station in society made it impossible for her to be remembered in the history books, Skvirsky will highlight a journey that was both unique (pre-railroad) and utterly commonplace (i.e., a typical journey of migration from country to city) for so many. 

SMACK MELLON, Brooklyn, New York, received a two-year grant of $22,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the Artist Studio Program, which was created to address the difficulty that emerging visual artists have finding affordable, appropriately-sized studio spaces in New York City. The individual studios are augmented by a production lab, Wi-Fi, a fabrication shop, and a shared kitchen and lounge area. Staff is on-hand to provide technical support. Smack Mellon nurtures and supports emerging, under-recognized, mid-career, and women artists in the creation and exhibition of new work. It provides exhibition opportunities, studio workspace, and access to equipment and technical assistance for the realization of ambitious projects.

The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Minnesota, also received $8,000 in support of the participation of emerging Minnesota artists in the 2015 Hand-in-Glove conference. The Soap Factory is acting as a Minnesota-based sponsor of the third Hand-in-Glove conference, scheduled to take place September 17-20, 2015. This is an annual convening of artists, arts organizers, and other supporters of independent and grassroots visual arts production. It will assemble arts leaders from cities across the country to address pressing issues and innovations through panel discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities. The conference will take place during the Minnesota Biennial exhibition at The Soap Factory. The convening is co-produced by Common Field, a new national network addressing the visibility and viability of artist-centric visual arts organizations and projects across the United States.

The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $25,000 in support of the participation of emerging New York City and Minnesota-based artists in the 2015 exhibition program. The Soap Factory is a laboratory for artistic experimentation and innovation, dedicated to supporting artists and engaging audiences through the production and presentation of contemporary art in a unique and historic environment. Programs are artist-centered, offering audiences a visceral and immediate experience of art and of the life of the artist. The Soap Factory supports artists and their work not only by providing funding, development and exhibition space for new work on an unprecedented scale, but also by providing a skilled staff to assist artists in realizing new work as well as critical reviews and publications.

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, Saint Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $68,000 in support of the participation of emerging Minnesota artists in the Artist Development and Resources Program. The mission of Springboard for the Arts is to cultivate a vibrant arts community by connecting artists with the skills, contacts, information, and services they need to make a living and a life. Artists may receive consultations from artist career counselors, participate in a wide range of workshops covering such areas as business and career planning, grantwriting, and legal affairs, and access Springboard's resource center, featuring a full array of equipment, tools, and services in an informal, self-directed environment. Jerome Foundation support helps to make these programs and services available to emerging artists at subsidized rates.

ROSE STARK received support for a 6-minute animated short called All the Pleasures of Youth Will Throb Within You, a cut paper and collage animated film that explores mankind's relationship to technology by traversing the history of the female vibrator. Filmmaker Stark sees the vibrator acting both as a symbol for technology on a large scale and more obviously as an instrument of women’s sexual liberation. The title is drawn from an ad for the first consumer vibrators, which seems highly relevant to our culture today according to Stark, especially as we face the challenges of integrating our bodies and minds with rapidly developing technologies. The film will express the danger of using sexuality as a currency, and the speculated effects this could have on America's pleasure-obsessed consumerist culture. The cut-out characters Stark is developing for the film have many moving parts indicative of machines—a metaphor often used for the human body. She will incorporate photo collage elements of antique and modern advertisements to create a sense of time and place within the film. There will be no dialogue or narration in the film—it will be more like an étude—a study on a specific theme using poetic and metaphorical imagery that will flow with an improvisational energy.

STREB, Brooklyn, New York, received $23,000 in support of the GO! Emerging Artists Commissioning Program. Built on the organizing principle of Extreme Action, as developed by choreographer and action architect Elizabeth Streb, STREB’s mission is to create opportunities for artistic discovery and connection for a constituency whose diversity represents the breadth and complexity of society at large. The GO! Emerging Artist Commissioning Program, a natural outgrowth of the company's evolution, thrives within STREB’s creative environment where experimentation with action, format, mediums, structure, and time is cultivated. The program is designed to foster a community of generative artists by providing time, resources and a critical eye to five emerging artists who will develop and showcase their commissioned work at Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM).

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM, New York City, received a two-year grant of $38,000 in support of the Artist-in-Residence program. Chartered in 1967, The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by black culture. It presents exhibitions and programs that expand personal, public, and scholarly understanding of contemporary art. Since 1968, the Studio Museum has played a catalytic role in advancing the work of visual artists of African and Latino descent through its Artist-in-Residence program. Three artists are selected each year to receive individual studio space, stipends, materials’ allowances, professional mentoring, and an exhibition of their work at the end of the residency year. The program offers the resident artists essential resources and media attention at a crucial time in their development.

JOHN PAUL SU received support for TOTO, a feature-length comedy/drama set in the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, about a young Filipino bellboy whose determination to attain a U.S. visa precipitates an odyssey of universal import. Undeterred by his lack of education and scant prospects, Toto schemes relentlessly to achieve his goal. When his antics put the lives of his loved ones in danger, he is forced to question the extremity of his actions and to re-evaluate the cost of fulfilling his dreams. In this film, all the characters have dreams and aspirations, be it about love, career, or simply friendship. But how far will one go to reach his dream? TOTO is, on one hand, a satire on the veneration of wealth and celebrity in a society where opportunity and resources are still scarce. It is also an allegory of the immigrant experience in general, seizing upon the luxury hotel where Toto works— with its glamorous classic Hollywood facade — as a symbol of the American Dream, and a persistent reminder of the often treacherous underworld in which that dream resides.

JESSE SWEET received support for City of Joel, a feature-length documentary that chronicles a year in the life of the controversial Hasidic community, Kiryas Joel, New York. To outsiders, it’s a small-town theocracy; to insiders, it’s Judaism’s best hope. Fifty miles north of Manhattan, the Satmar - a sect of ultra-Orthodox Hasidim - are building their version of utopia. Kiryas Joel, New York is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world, and also one of the most devout. It has the highest birthrate in New York and the state’s lowest median age. The bourgeoning village of 25,000 is a microcosm for some of the most urgent questions surrounding religious life in this country. What is the appeal of fundamentalist communities in the 21st Century? Why are they growing? What fulfillment do they offer their members? At what cost? By journeying into this fervently devout world that has never before been captured on film, City of Joel will create a groundbreaking look at some of the most important questions about the role that faith will play in America in the 21st century.

MUSA SYEED received support for a 90-minute narrative feature called A STRAY. In Minneapolis' "Little Mogadishu", home to one of the largest Somali refugee communities in the world, a troubled young Somali man takes refuge in a mosque, hoping to leave the street life behind him. Alienated from his family and friends, he has a lonely journey ahead of him, until he makes an unlikely—and ungodly—new friend: a stray dog. Nineteen-year-old ADAN knows he deserves better.  Since his mom kicked him out, he took up with the wrong crowd and got wrapped up in the streets of “Little Mogadishu”. But now, in a sincere attempt to reform, he finds solace in the mosque. Working and living as a janitor, Adan hopes to atone and stay out of trouble. When LIBAN, a zealous brother at the mosque, offers Adan a shift driving a taxi, Adan thinks God has answered his prayers: he can finally earn a pure income and stay on the straight and narrow. But his first day on the job, Adan accidentally swipes a stray dog. With shelters closed for the day and guilt weighing him down, he has no choice but to take the mutt in for a night. Adan has nowhere else to go, so he tries to hide the dog on the mosque’s grounds. But Liban discovers the dog, traditionally considered impure in Muslim communities, and he quickly throws Adan and the dog out. The one person that actually wants to hear from Adan is FBI agent Knudsen. Adan has been feeding her basic info on the community’s troubled youth, working as a freelancer for a quick buck. Now Knudsen wants him to become a full-fledged informant. Although he knows the job will mean setting up his friends for a terror sting, he gives in to her promises of a steady paycheck and housing. With the deal struck, Adan can look forward to a warm bed the next day--but for now, he still has to get through the night with this dumb dog. Adan takes the dog to a shelter. As he waits to be called up, he ventures a hand over the dog’s back, petting her for the first time. After last night, he feels they are more alike than different. Could they continue to look for a home—together? A contemporary, vital yet untold story, A STRAY explores what it means to be at home—and what it means to be a stray—in a constantly changing world.

TESAURO, MARISA, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Southern Italy to conduct archeological research through observing and participating at an excavation site and laboratory, visiting archeological sites, and meeting with archeology scholars and researchers in the Magna Graecia area, specifically in the Basilicata, Calabria, and Puglia regions. This will further her work looking at contemporary societies and built environments through an archeological lens.

The TEXTILE CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $37,000 in support of the 2015-16 Jerome Fiber Artists Project Grants Program, which expands opportunities for emerging Minnesota fiber artists by supporting them as they undertake specific projects that advance their artistic careers. A culminating exhibition caps the nine months of work that each of the artists outlines in an individualized proposal. Four $5,000 awards will be given to emerging fiber artists selected through an open call and competitive review process. The grant commitment included a contribution to other programs serving emerging fiber artists. Textile Center’s mission is to honor textile traditions and promote excellence and innovation in fiber art. Its goals are to advance the fiber arts by bringing credibility and attention to the field, develop current and potential fiber arts practitioners and artists, maintain a vibrant textile arts community connected to the Center, and ensure the Center’s sustainability for the next generation.

THAO, FRES, Saint Paul, Minnesota, will travel to Chiang Mai, Mae Rim, Doi Pui, Mae Sa Ma, and Kad Luang, Thailand. Thao plans to visit cities and villages to conduct interviews with artists and cultural organizers to collect narratives around technique and aesthetics, as well as ideologies around creating art, the importance of art in the Hmong Thai culture, and the inclusion of art in everyday life. This experience will inform his work as Executive Director for the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT), the first multidisciplinary Hmong arts organization, and his work as a hip hop/spoken word artist and founder of hip hop groups, Illegoaliens and Figure 8 Loops. 

NEW YORK LIVE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for choreographer David Thomson, Brooklyn, New York, received $12,000 in support of the creation and production of a new work, he his own mythical beast. New York Live Arts is an internationally recognized destination for innovative movement-based artistry that offers audiences access to art and artists notable for their conceptual rigor, formal experimentation, and active engagement with the social, political, and cultural currents of these times. Thomson’s work exists among the intersections of movement, text, and sound/song, mining the unconscious narratives and underlying structures that drive the experience of both performers and the audience/witnesses. he his own mythical beast (working title) is a multimedia performance work composed of three separate sections that come together in an integrated meditation on race, gender, and sexual identity in American society through the lens of voyeurism. The project incorporates an examination of the artifice and performance of “identity” and the contradictions embedded in these ideas and actions.

The Karen L. Charles Threads Dance Project, Golden Valley, Minnesota, received $10,000 in support of the creation, development, and production of a new work, Warriors of Light. Threads Dance Project is a contemporary dance company that seeks to examine, expose, and celebrate the threads that bind humans together. Warriors of Light is an evening-length work that strives to reinterpret the literary work Warrior of the Light: A Manual by Brazilian lyricist and novelist Paulo Coelho. The metaphor of training a warrior conveys the idea of appreciating the miracles of life as a guiding force for light and good in the world. The intersection of the book's two main characters, the young man and the veiled woman, will drive the dance.

Tofte Lake Center, Ely, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $62,000 to support six weeklong residencies for emerging artists based in Minnesota and New York City in the summers of 2015 and 2016. Tofte Lake Center is a retreat for artists, scholars, and leaders wishing to expand and deepen their creative potential through collaborations with artists and thinkers in other fields. All work and play takes place within a supportive community offering daily opportunities for interaction, stimulation, and reflection. The facilities feature both individual and community workspaces. All activities stem from the inherent belief that individual creativity is the essential tool in our evolution as a culture. The Emerging Artists Program supported by Jerome Foundation enables both individual creative artists and collaborative teams of artists working in any discipline to take time to focus on current work. The residencies are designed to provide space and means of support for artists wishing to further their creative endeavors in the visual, literary, or performing arts.

ELIANA UJUETA received support for The Airport Run, a 38-minute narrative short.  Two young inmates – African American Elijah and Caucasian Jake -- became friends in prison. Jake is released early and has set up a job for Elijah, which involves driving for a car service. Elijah has learned his lesson and never wants to be incarcerated again. He plans to work temporarily as a driver so he can help his ailing grandmother and slowly finish college. Jake’s true intention, however, is to get Elijah involved in a criminal heist. Will Elijah become involved in a sinister burglary scheme, or will his instincts be his salvation?

WINGARD, MICHELLE WESTMARK, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Amsterdam and Ronse, Belgium, to interview the son of the farmer who saved her grandfather's life, to photograph the remains of her grandfather’s plane wreckage from World War II, and to visit the monument erected in honor of her grandfather and his crew. She will also meet with local and regional historians. She is interested in the ways stories are told from different perspectives. She hopes that this will be a starting point for a new work that will be a hybrid of previous projects with more personal content.