Past
Grantees

MICHAEL BEACH NICHOLS and CHRISTOPHER K. WALKER received support for Welcome to Leith, a feature-length documentary chronicling the attempted takeover of Leith, a small town in North Dakota, by notorious white supremacist Craig Cobb. Filmed in the days leading up to Cobb's arrest for terrorizing the townspeople of Leith while on an armed patrol with other supremacists, and his subsequent release from jail six months later, the film is an eerie document of American DIY (Do it Yourself) ideals. Welcome to Leith is a fascinating and frequently suspenseful story about race, civil liberties, and freedom in America. That it takes place in the shadow of the biggest oil boom in North Dakota's history makes the film a complex document exploring unforeseen causes and effects. 

The Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $13,580 in support of a new Jerome Ceramic Artist of Color Residency Program. The Center's mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Ongoing programs include exhibitions, classes and workshops, studio space and grants for artists, and a sales gallery. This new initiative will support a one-year residency for a Minnesota-based emerging ceramic artist of color, providing access to a studio at the Center, continuing education and professional development through participation in Center programming, travel to a national ceramics conference, an honorarium, a touring exhibition, and a stipend for materials.

NORTHERN CLAY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $27,100 in support of the 2016 Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grants Program, through which three emerging ceramic artists will be awarded project grants of $6,000 for individually designed advancement opportunities such as buying time for work in the studio, purchase of equipment, working a mentor, traveling for professional opportunities and workshops, and experimenting with new techniques and glaze recipes. Northern Clay Center's mission is the advancement of the ceramic arts. Ongoing programs include classes and workshops for children and adults at all levels of proficiency; exhibitions of work by regional, national, and international artists; studio space and grants for artists; and a sales gallery representing many of the top ceramic artists from the region and elsewhere.

MADELEINE OLNEK received support for Wild Nights With Emily, a 90-minute narrative about the secret life of Emily Dickinson. The poet’s persona that has become popularized after her death is that of a reclusive spinster – a lonely woman who never left her room, did not talk to people, and never fell in love. Olnek’s film explores the vivacious, personable side of Dickinson that was recently revealed to have been covered up by her editor, most notably her lifelong romance with another woman. Advances in science have recently allowed scholars to look deeper into Emily Dickinson’s work and find erasures, as well as obvious and major edits to her poems by Mabel Todd, Emily’s self-appointed literary executor after her death. Looking at her letters and poetry without these alterations, Dickenson’s devotion to this other woman is palpable. Emily’s love for her jumps off the page. The woman in question is Susan Gilbert, who met Emily as a teenager and went on to become her sister-in-law, marrying her brother Austin and moving in nextdoor so that they could remain as close as possible. Austin eventually grew unfaithful to Gilbert, entering into a highly public affair with Mabel Todd after the death of his and Susan’s son. It was this affair that drove Mabel’s rivalry with Susan, which led to Mabel taking extraordinary measures to erase Susan from Emily’s poems and letters after Emily’s death. Wild Nights With Emily was originally a play that Olnek wrote and directed. She is now adapting this story for the screen.

RATI ONELI received support for City of the Sun, a feature-length (100-minute) documentary in which three remarkable stories intersect in the half deserted ghost town of Chiatura (located in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia) run by an international mining corporation. Once a leading mining town and paragon of Communist utopian society, Chiatura supplied 60% of the world’s finest manganese during the reign of the Soviet Union. It’s a town that represented a triumphant marriage of human will and technology. In addition to some 35 mines, a leading theater, cultural centers and universities, a spectacular super airway system was built for the town some 60 years ago. To this day, Chiatura is the world’s only city with the largest number of air cable cars used as public transport with the total length of the cableways exceeding 6,000 meters. Running continuously since 1954, never repaired and dangerously outdated, they resemble phantasmagorical floating prisons and are still the main mode of transportation. Here three improbable but true stories intersect: a group of toothless pensioners get together to demand their teeth from the government that extracted them for election campaign purposes a year before; a music teacher turned demolition expert sets out to find the thieves who stole his precious construction metal that he hoped would pay for his son’s asthma treatment; a miner-turned-actor has to make a life-altering choice between sticking with his dream of being in theater or remaining in a miserable life by keeping his job at the mines in order to feed his family; and two malnourished champion athletes have to overcome the odds and win the next Olympic games to survive. City of the Sun is a surreal vision of a post-apocalyptic ghost town and its inhabitants who live in the shadow of an international mining corporation - the most powerful player and the biggest employer in the city.

OSMAN, LAIMAH, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Puebla and Mexico City, Mexico, to experience art as part of the city and break down western definitions of art verses craft to find new socially engaged ways to present her visual poetry. Osman will be an artist in residence at Arquetopia, an international residency program that promotes social transformation and cultural exchange. She will attend a self-directed printmaking residency in which she will extract and dye natural pigments.  She will learn from and share ideas with fellow artists and see work, especially the large murals, in Mexico City.

RAUL O. PAZ PASTRANA received support for the feature-length documentary Border South, which melds Visual Anthropology and Cinema Verite to bring a disarming portrait of the brutal and beautiful journey that is crossing undocumented through Mexico.Border South follows the story of Nicaraguan migrant Gustavo who was shot by railway guards while riding a freight train through the state of Tlaxcala, a 17 year old Honduran girl named Keila who now spends time with young criminals in Palenque, Chiapas after being stranded by her smugglers, and Jason, an anthropologist who finds himself searching for 15 year old Ecuadorian Migrant José Tacuri, who was last seen alive crossing the Arizona desert. Within these stories lies the brutality and intolerance that migrants face as they cross through Mexico, but also the kindness, humor and love for life that migrants must summon in order to attempt one of the most dangerous journeys in the world.

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122 (PS 122), Brooklyn, New York, received $50,000 in support of fiscal 2015-16 emerging artists’ commissions and residency fees. PS 122 will use these funds to support the creation, development, and production of new works by emerging artists. Commissions will seed pieces to be produced within the COIL Festival and the RAMP series. For over 30 years, PS 122 has been a leading contemporary performance hub in New York City. Its mission is to provide incomparable experiences for audiences by presenting and commissioning artists whose work challenges boundaries of live performance. PS 122 is dedicated to supporting creative risks taken by artists from diverse genres, cultures, and perspectives.

Pillsbury United Communities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, on behalf of Pillsbury House Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $36,500 in support of the 2015 Late Nite Series. The Theatre's mission is to create challenging theater to inspire choice, change, and connection. The Late Nite Series is a transformation of culture where text, music, spoken word, sounds, and images weave together in a fearless celebration of new voices and new art. Late Nite provides genuine support for artistic exploration within and across the disciplines of dance, music, poetry, theater, and film. This series features works-in-progress by emerging artists based in New York City and Minnesota.

Pillsbury United Communities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, on behalf of Pillsbury House Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $37,500 in support of the 2015 Naked Stages program. The Theatre's mission is to create challenging theater to inspire choice, change, and connection. Naked Stages is a nine-month fellowship program for emerging performance artists. Three emerging artists are selected each year. The goals of the program are to assist artists in acquiring tools to pursue opportunities in performance, practice critical response skills, and gain knowledge in marketing and production. The program emphasizes artistic process. The artists meet as a group to participate in workshops and provide a critical and supportive environment for creating new work.

PILLSBURY HOUSE + THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $15,000 in support of the development and production of new work by emerging playwrights in the mainstage program. Pillsbury House + Theatre creates challenging theatre to inspire choice, change and connection. PHT is a diverse company of artists working in partnership with diverse audiences to create transformational arts experiences. As part of Pillsbury United Communities, a large and respected human service agency committed to building relationships to strengthen the core city, PHT upholds the tradition of the arts as part and parcel of the life of all communities. Pillsbury House + Theatre’s  vision is one of a new kind of arts organization that is both professional and community-driven, that is known for artistic excellence and broad accessibility, and that engages a diverse constituency which benefits individually and collectively from participation.

The Playwrights’ Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $94,000 in support of Many Voices Fellowships and Mentorships for emerging playwrights of color. The Playwrights' Center champions playwrights and new plays to build upon a living theater that demands new and innovative works. Founded in 1971, the Center focuses on both supporting playwrights and promoting new plays to production at theaters across the country. The Many Voices Program provides two early-career fellowships per year to playwrights of color and mentorships to two beginning Minnesota playwrights of color each year. The Many Voices Fellowships provide stipends, funds for living expenses, play development funds, and assistance building connections with theater leaders and companies in the Twin Cities and nationwide. Many Voices Mentorships are awarded annually to two Minnesota-based beginning playwrights of color. Mentorships focus on the nuts and bolts of playwriting through a curated package of writing and development services intended to aid the participant toward the completion of a play script. Mentorships provide stipends as well as access to a number of services designed to introduce beginning playwrights to the craft of playwriting.

THE PLAYWRIGHTS’ CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $160,000 in support of Jerome Fellowships for Emerging Playwrights, which are awarded annually to four writers who receive funds and resources to develop their craft. Fellows spend a year-long residency in Minnesota and have access to multiple opportunities, including workshops with professional directors, dramaturgs and actors. Each fellow receives a stipend in addition to funds to support the development of their work. The Playwrights' Center champions playwrights and new plays to build upon a living theater that demands new and innovative work. In addition to awarding some of the most generous fellowships for playwrights and theater artists in the United States, the nationally recognized Center continues breaking ground with playwright-centric play development processes, bold theater partnerships, and online and on-site resources serving over 1,500 member playwrights, including more than 300 based in Minnesota.

THE POETRY PROJECT, New York City, received a two-year grant of $44,000 in support of Emerge-Surface-Be. The Poetry Project promotes, fosters, and inspires the reading and writing of contemporary poetry to diverse audiences, increasing public awareness and appreciation of poetry, providing a community setting in which poets may exchange ideas and information, and encouraging the participation of new poets with a broad range of styles. It accomplishes these goals through live programming, workshops, publications, a website, and special events. Emerge-Surface-Be, a fellowship and mentoring program for emerging poets based in New York City, formalizes the distinct inter-generational pedagogical aspect of Poetry Project programs. It matches poets of promise deserving of greater recognition with established poet mentors. It also builds craft and audiences for the emerging poets’ work. Three emerging poets each year work one-on-one over nine months with three established poet mentors.

POETS HOUSE, New York City, received a two-year grant of $34,000 in support of Poets House: Emerging Poets Fellowship 5. Poets House is a national poetry library and literary center that invites poets and the public to step into the living tradition of poetry. Poets House’s poetry resources and literary events document the wealth and diversity of poetry, stimulate public dialogue on issues of poetry in culture, and cultivate a wider audience for poetry. Since Poets House is open to all, part of its mission is to serve pre-emerging and emerging writers. These include high school students, college students, adults, seniors, and anyone interested in being a writer of poetry. All of its activities—its library, literary programs, children and youth programs, even exhibitions—support this endeavor.

RATHERMEL, JEFF, Minneapolis, Minnesota, an artist and arts administrator, will travel to different locations in the United Kingdom and in Amsterdam to research and document contemporary developments in the book arts, learn new techniques and programming methods from international leaders in the field, and gain insights that will inspire growth in his personal artistic practice and inform the creative evolution of the organization he leads, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

DEEPAK RAUNIYAR received support for White Sun, an 89-minute long drama about life in a Nepali Mountain Village in the wake of a decade-long armed conflict. When his father dies, anti-regime partisan Chandra must travel to his remote mountain village after nearly a decade away. Little Pooja is anxiously awaiting the man she thinks is her father, but she's confused when Chandra arrives with Badri, a young street orphan rumored to be his son. Chandra must face his brother Suraj, who was on the opposing side during the Nepali civil war. The two brothers cannot put aside political feelings while carrying their father's body down the steep mountain path to the river for cremation. Suraj storms off in a rage, leaving Chandra with no other men strong enough to help. Under pressure from the village elders, Chandra must seek help from outside the village to obey the rigid caste and discriminatory gender traditions he fought to eliminate during the war. Chandra searches for a solution in neighboring villages, among the police, guests at a local wedding, and rebel guerrillas.

RED EYE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $33,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the 2015 New Works 4 Weeks Program. Red Eye is a multidisciplinary creative laboratory dedicated to the creation and presentation of pioneering theater and performance work. In addition to presenting its own multimedia theatrical productions, Red Eye functions as an incubator and producer of other artists’ works.  It supplies audiences and artists with opportunities to get up-close and personal with the thrills and challenges involved with developing new work. New Works 4 Weeks is a multidisciplinary festival that is the culminating public component of Red Eye's Works-In-Progress and Isolated Acts programs. They serve emerging artists investigating new directions in performance. They provide extended periods of time for exploring new ideas in a laboratory setting, and share a six-month timeframe for development, which culminates in four weeks of public performance.

The ROCHESTER ART CENTER, Rochester, Minnesota, received $23,000 in support of the 2016 3rd Floor Emerging Artist Series. The Center offers the opportunity for all people to understand and value the arts through innovative experiences with contemporary art. Through exhibitions and programs, it presents a welcoming, integrated, and diverse experience that encourages questioning, creativity, and critical thinking. In 2004, the Center initiated the 3rd Floor Emerging Artist Series, an exhibition program devoted to promising young artists working in Minnesota. The series reflects shifting trends in contemporary artistic practice and production and has helped to facilitate the creation of new bodies of work in a wide variety of media including photography, installation, sound, painting, drawing, sculpture, and film.

CARLYE RUBIN and KATIE GREEN received support for the 75-minute documentary 1275 Days. With America incarcerating more of its youth than any other country in the world, 1275 Days explores the complicated juvenile justice system through the personal stories of those entwined within it by following two families 1300 miles apart, with little in common except one thing: both have sons in prison, serving sentences longer than they’ve been alive. This film goes beyond a polemic of the juvenile justice system, documenting the multi-dimensional aspects of these stories and the daily struggles of those they have left behind in the free world, posing questions about ethical dilemmas and accountability when sentencing youth. While the juxtaposition of two different cases poses many interesting questions, ultimately both raise the same fundamental issue: where is our moral compass when we take a child, who has done wrong, from all that he has ever known, to spend his most impressionable years in prison? Children make mistakes, some make bad ones, and while a few could be dangerous, society needs a place to send them, but is that place prison?