Past
Grantees

Pamela Council is a New York based interdisciplinary artist creating fountains for Black joy. Guided by material, cultural, and metaphysical quests, Council’s practice embodies a darkly humorous and inventive Afro-Americana camp aesthetic, BLAXIDERMY. Through this lens, Council uses sculpture, architecture, writing, and performance to shed light on under-examined and under-valued narratives.

Council has created commissions, exhibitions, performances or presentations for: New Museum for Contemporary Art, United States Library of Congress, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Studio Museum in Harlem, and MoCADA. Council has been Artist-in-Residence at MacDowell, Red Bull Arts, Bemis, Rush Arts, MANA, Signal Culture, Mass MoCA, and Wassaic Project. A recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell Grant, Council holds a BA from Williams College and an MFA from Columbia University and is currently artist in residence at ISCP.

Producer, director, writer, editor and educator James Curry has been active in filmmaking for over 25 years. Educated at Full Sail, The American Film Institute and the Vermont College of Fine Arts where he earned his MFA in Film, he has continued to work as a producer, writer, director, editor on numerous projects in Los Angeles and Minneapolis ranging from trailers, commercials, PSA's, epk's and music videos as well as broadcast for NBC, FOX and news for ABC.

Directorial projects for clients included documentary work for Prince's Life O' the Party. His short film Westbound was selected for the 2016 New York Short Film Festival, the Twin Cities Black Film Festival and the Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival. His last documentary masterjam was the focus of a panel convened at the 2019 Denton Black Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the 2018 Twin Cities Black Film Festival.

Kyle Dacuyan writes poems and makes performance. Recent poems appear in The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, Social Text, and elsewhere. He has presented performance work with movement and poetry at Ars Nova, FringeArts, Haus für Poesie, and the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, among other places. He is the Executive Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s in NYC.

Shayna Dunkelman is a musician and percussionist based in Brooklyn, NY. Dunkelman is known for her versatile and unique techniques, and use of electronics to access a sonic pallet not found in acoustic percussion. In addition to solo performances, Dunkelman tours with Balún, Du Yun, Emily Wells, Ali Sethi and Nomon.

Born and raised in Tokyo to an Indonesian mother and an American father. Dunkelman became increasingly active in the alternative music scene as a member of the band Xiu Xiu, touring the world for 6 years. As part of Xiu Xiu, Dunkelman shared stages with Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic TV), Sun Ra Arkestra, Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) to name a few. Dunkelman has recorded and performed with pioneers of avant-garde experimental musicians such as Yuka C. Honda, John Zorn, Yoko Ono, and Thurston Moore, and performed at Carnegie Hall, Centre Pompidou, Lincoln Center, The MET among others.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Amanda Ekery weaves her experience in underground rock, improvisatory creative music, research, and jazz into her compositions, workshops, and community-based projects. Amanda’s compositions have been featured at the Kennedy Center and the Panama Jazz Festival, and have earned support from Downbeat Magazine, New Music USA and Chamber Music America.

As a researcher, she has been invited to speak at the International Vocal Jazz Conference in Helsinki Finland, International Women in Music Leadership Conference in London, and Jazz Congress at Lincoln Center. Amanda is also a dedicated teaching artist and the founder of El Paso Jazz Girls, a non-profit organization committed to education equity for young female musicians. Learn more at www.amandaekery.com

Based in Brooklyn New York, guitarist / composer Liberty Ellman has performed and or recorded with a host of stand out creative artists including: Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, Greg Osby, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nels Cline, Somi, Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Ledisi, JD Allen, Michele Rosewoman, Adam Rudolph, Stephan Crump, Jonathan Finlayson, Okkyung Lee, and Ches Smith. In 2014 Ellman participated in Luanda Kinshasa, a video installation by visionary filmmaker Stan Douglas and Jason Moran.

Mr. Ellman is perhaps best known for his long tenure in Henry Threadgill's groundbreaking ensemble, Zooid. The group has recorded several critically lauded albums. Their most recent recording In For A Penny, In For A Pound earned a Pulitzer prize for Mr. Threadgill. In addition to playing guitar, Mr. Ellman is credited as producer and mixing engineer on that recording.

His compositional style has been described as "At once highly controlled and recklessly inventive,” and the Wall Street Journal said: “Ellman, along with his peers, is helping to define post millennial jazz.” Voted #1 Rising Star Guitarist in the 2016 Downbeat Critics Poll, he was also honored in the 2015 Jazz Times expanded critics poll, as one of the four guitarists of the year alongside Bill Frisell, John Scofield and Julian Lage.

Moriah Evans works on and through forms of dance and performance. Her choreographies navigate utopic/dystopic potentials within choreography/dance/body, often approaching dance as a fleshy, matriarchal form slipping between minimalism-excess. She initiated “The Bureau for the Future of Choreography,” a collective apparatus, to create research processes and practices to investigate participatory performances and systems of choreography in 2011. Evans was an artist-in-residence at Movement Research, The New Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Issue Project Room, Studio Series at Νew York Live Arts, ImPulsTanz, MoMA/PS1, MANA Contemporary, Onassis AiR. She was editor-in-chief of the Movement Research Performance Journal 2013-2020, curatorial advisor for the Tanzkongress 2019, co-artistic direction and editor of 2019.tanzkongress.de/salons (2019), and co-curator of Dance and Process (The Kitchen 2016-present).

She received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award to Artists (2017) and a Bessie Award nomination for Emerging Choreographer (2015). Notable works: BASTARDS (NYU Skirball, Νew York, 2019); Configure (The Kitchen, Νew York, 2018); Figuring (SculptureCenter, Νew York, 2018); Be my Muse (Villa Empain, Brussels, 2016; FD13, Minneapolis, 2017; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, 2018); Social Dance 9-12: Encounter (Danspace Project, Νew York, 2015); Social Dance 1-8: Index (ISSUE Project Room, Νew York, 2015); Another Performance (Danspace Project, Νew York, 2013); and Out of and Into (8/8): STUFF (Theatre de l’Usine, Geneva, 2012). Her choreographies have been commissioned throughout Νew York and internationally at Kampnagel (Hamburg); Theatre de l’Usine (Geneva); Villa Empain (Brussels); Atelier de Paris (Paris); and Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai). She received her BA in Art History & English (honors), Wellesley College, and her MA in Art History, Theory, and Criticism (20th Century Art) from UCSD’s Visual Arts Department.

Diane Exavier is a writer, theatermaker, and educator. She creates performances, public programs, and games that invite audiences to participate in a theater that rejects passive reception. Dispatching from Caribbean Diaspora, Diane’s work, which intersects performance and poetry, concerns itself with what she calls the 4L's: love, loss, legacy, and land. Her work has been presented at Haiti Cultural Exchange, Westmont College, Sibiu's International Theater Festival in Romania, University of California: Northridge, Bowery Poetry Club, Dixon Place, and more.

Her writing appears in The Atlas Review and The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind, amongst other publications. Her play Good Blood received a 2017 Kilroys List Honorable Mention. Her book The Math of Saint Felix is forthcoming from The 3rd Thing Press in 2021. Diane holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from Brown University. She lives and works in Brooklyn.

Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts is an emerging company combining filmmaking, photography, and dance. Her company has been commissioned by Gibney Dance Inc (2020-2021), Danspace Project Inc (2019), Pepatian and BAAD! (2018), and beyond. Farrish has been supported by creative residencies including Gibney New Voices, Barysnikov Arts Center (2020), Keshet Makers Space Experience, BAX Space Grant (2019), Pepatian Dance Your Future (2018), and Chez Bushwick (2017). Pieces sprouted outwards including Black Bodies Sonata, The New Frontier (my dear America) live production and film, With grit From, Grace, Spectacle Film and Live Production, and anticipated Martyr's Fiction. Performed at venues like Judson Church, Danspace Project Inc, Jacob's Pillow, BAAD!, film festivals, and beyond.

Bessie awardee, Davalois Fearon, was named one of Dance Magazine’s “7 Up-and-Coming Black Dance Artists Who Should Be On Your Radar” in 2018. Fearon is a critically acclaimed choreographer, dancer, and educator born in Jamaica and raised in the Bronx. She danced with Stephen Petronio from 2005-2017 and founded Davalois Fearon Dance in 2016 with the mission to push artistic and social boundaries. Her choreography is said to reflect a “tenacious virtuosity,” which has been presented nationally and internationally, including at renowned New York City venues such as the Joyce Theatre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New Victory Theatre. Among others, Fearon has completed commissions for the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Harlem Stage, and Barnard College and is a recipient of numerous awards, including New Music USA Project Grant, Map Fund Grant, Dance NYC Dance Advancement Fund Award, and the Alvin Ailey New Dance Direction Choreography Lab residency.

Moko Fukuyama is a Japanese artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is driven by the art of storytelling and personal narratives. Through art, she creates open and sympathetic spaces to explore the socioeconomic realities and psychology of everyday life. Fukuyama has received grants, fellowships and commissions from notable art institutions such as Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Foundation For Contemporary Arts, SOHO20, MacDowell, Yaddo, Recess, The Shed, and more. She is a current resident at ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn, New York), and is a 2021 Fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, Minnesota. Her current project will be presented at The Kitchen, New York in spring 2021.

Colombian pianist and composer Ricardo Gallo has written for acoustic and electro-acoustic formats, for short films, videos, dance, installations, and multimedia stage productions, and has performed and written for jazz and improvisatory groups. He has published eleven albums as a leader or co-leader.

Gallo has received commissions from Colombia National Symphony Orchestra, Big Band Bogotá, and contemporary ensembles in New York and Bogotá.

His current projects as performer/composer include his Bogotá-based quartet, duos with guitar player Alejandro Florez and with singer Juanita Delgado, and an ongoing collaboration with Cecilia Vicuña. With the multimedia group La Quinta del Lobo, he participated as composer and performer on two large scale stage pieces.

He holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of North Texas and a Masters's and Ph.D. in music composition from Stony Brook University. He maintains a strong connection with Bogotá's music scene and is currently based in New York.

Ritika Ganguly, PhD., is a Minneapolis-based singer, composer, performance artist, and anthropologist, born and raised in New Delhi, India. She applies anthropological insights to practical problem-solving in the areas of equity in the arts and cross-cultural medicine. Her consulting practice and artistic practice both strive for an equality based on difference, rather than on the similarity of things, people, and knowledges.

Ritika was commissioned to compose and create new musical work by The Cedar Cultural Center in 2016, received the Naked Stages award in 2017, and an MRAC Next Step Fund award in 2018 for her research and new musical work in Baul (Bengali Sufi music/poetry). She has trained in multiple genres within Bengali music and in contemporary Indian musical theater. Her vocal and compositional work bring disparate musical styles, literatures, and disciplines together. She was commissioned in December 2020 to write an opera for MN Opera.

Katie Gee Salisbury is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn. Her work has been featured in The Ringer, VICE, Roads & Kingdoms, the Asian American Writer's Workshop, Slant'd, and On Being, among other publications. She is drawn to narratives that explore culture, food, race and identity, and the lives of extraordinary women. Her past projects have been supported by the TED Residency, Think!Chinatown, Chashama, and Dashboard.

She is currently at work on a nonfiction book that chronicles the life and times of Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star, for Dutton Books. Born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California, she is half Anglo-Irish, half Chinese, and a 4th-generation Chinese American.

Beatrice Glow is an artist-researcher leveraging interactive multimedia installations and multi-sensory experiences in service of public history and just futures. Her ongoing projects on the social histories of plants provide vignettes into the entangled historical realities of dispossession, enslavement, diasporas, trade and extractive economies.

She has been named a 2021 Yale-NUS College Artist-in-Residence, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Artist, Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, Smack Mellon Studio Program Artist, ZERO1 American Arts Incubator artist and US Fulbright Scholar.

Notable activities include solo exhibitions Forts and Flowers (2019), Taipei Contemporary Art Center; Spice Roots/Routes (2017), NYU Institute of Fine Arts; Aromérica Parfumeur (2016), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Chile; Mannahatta VR, Wayfinding Project and Lenapeway (2016-17), Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU; Rhunhattan Tearoom (2015), Wave Hill; Floating Library (2014) aboard the Hudson River’s Lilac Museum Steamship; and group shows at Honolulu Biennial 2017, Park Avenue Armory and Galeri Nasional Indonesia.

Chris Gude (New York, 1985) studied anthropology and geography at Middlebury College. In 2006, he went to Medellín, Colombia to work at a refugee shelter for internally displaced persons. There, he started a friendship with Jorge Gaviria, who would become the body and voice of his first two films, both of them blending documentary and fiction with extensive fieldwork. Mambo Cool (2013) was embedded in the underworld of small time drug traffickers in Medellín and Mariana (2017) in that of gasoline and whiskey smugglers on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. They have exhibited at places such as FIDMarseille, Viennale, Punto de Vista, Mar del Plata, Cartagena, Lincoln Center, MALBA (Buenos Aires), Cinemateca de Madrid, the Museum of the Moving Image (New York), Cinemateca Nacional de Colombia, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal, among others. Chris is currently working on a film about gold mining in Venezuela.

Gordon Hall is an artist based in New York who makes sculptures and performances. Hall has had solo presentations at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, The Renaissance Society, EMPAC, and Temple Contemporary, and has been in group exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Hessel Museum, Art in General, White Columns, Socrates Sculpture Park, among many other venues.

Hall’s writing and interviews have been published widely including in Art Journal, Artforum, Art in America, and Bomb, as well as in Walker Art Center's Artist Op-Ed Series, What About Power? Inquiries Into Contemporary Sculpture (published by SculptureCenter), Documents of Contemporary Art: Queer (published by Whitechapel and MIT Press,), and Theorizing Visual Studies (Routledge). A volume of Hall’s collected essays, interviews, and performance scripts was published by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in 2019. Gordon Hall will be 2021 resident faculty at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

Crystal Hana Kim is the author of If You Leave Me, which was a Booklist Editor’s Choice title and named a best book of 2018 by The Washington Post, Literary Hub, The New York Post, and Nylon, among others. She was a 2017 PEN America Dau Short Story Prize winner, and has received scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Hedgebrook. Her work has been published in The Paris Review, Guernica, Elle Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches at Columbia University and is a contributing editor at Apogee Journal. Crystal is currently working on her second novel and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Darine Hotait is a writer, film director, and the founder of Cinephilia Productions— film incubator championing the next generation of African and Middle Eastern filmmakers. Hotait’s award-winning films can be seen on SundanceTV, AMC Networks, BBC Channel, ShortsTV and at over a hundred international film festivals. Her work received the support of the New York Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Arab Fund of Arts and Culture, The Independent Film Project, and Maison Des Scénaristes at Cannes Film Festival. Her narrative films Tallahassee and Sherman are forthcoming in 2021. She is currently developing her debut narrative feature film Like Salt and two TV shows Dearborn and Kenzi. Darine resides in New York City.