#individualgrants

[yegarts]

2021 Grants for Individuals & Collectives Recipients: Stream 3

In 2020 the Edmonton Arts Council announced a significant change to the way we fund artists and collectives. Focusing on fostering experimentation, supporting artists from equity-seeking groups, and professional development and mentorship (addressing the Aims and Actions found in Connections & Exchanges: A Ten-Year Plan To Transform Arts & Heritage in Edmonton in Book 4, on page 8), we introduced Arts Grants for Individuals and Collectives. This re-vamped program is split into three streams, with different funding levels and application requirements, to help support a broader range of artistic exploration, development, and creation.

Stream 3 of the Arts Grants for Individuals and Collectives focuses on major artist-driven projects. This stream supports artist-initiated projects, including production/presentation that is clearly considered in light of public health advice and restrictions. Projects may be solo or collective, with grants of up to $25,000 based on projected project expenses, including artist subsistence. We are happy to share that 36 artists were supported in this stream of the program following the February deadline. Congratulations!

The following artists were supported in Stream 3: Major artist-driven projects:

Jonathon Adams is conducting in-depth research into Métis vocal music with an emphasis on historical performance praxis and cultural resurgence. This project includes a residency with scholar Dr. Lynn Whidden, and a professional recording of Métis music with Les Voix Humaines Viol Consort.

John Armstrong (Brass Monkey Productions) will produce, present, and document 100 community concert series events featuring local, original musical artists and employing health and safety protocols that meet or exceed all Alberta Health Services guidelines.

Makram Ayache is undertaking six weeks of rewriting and a week-long development workshop with a team of actors, a director, a dramaturg, and an assistant dramaturg which will result in a new draft of recent work.

Greg Bechtel is completing a first working draft of a new novel.

Fabiola Belarmino de Farias Amorim will record a Repertoire for violin and viola.  

Daniel Belland will record two singles for Homofonik, a queer electropop duo.

Gomathi Boorada is producing "The stories from the Mystic Mountains", a trans-disciplinary dance production with dance, drama, music and puppetry.

Amber Bracken will create a series of photographs and audio portraits exploring of how race has impacted and bisected the artist's mixed-race family.  

Gabe Calderon will work with a peer review committee of diverse voices to review the artist's recently completed manuscript: Màgòdiz.

Sara Campos-Silvius will produce and direct the short film POWER CHORD: A riot grrrl punk comedy.  

Celeigh Cardinal is creating a music video for her original song "There Ain't No Way".

Jacob Cardinal (The Treaty 6 Contemporary Artist Collective) is producing a multidisciplinary Indigenous Art exhibition, featuring established and emerging artists, for on-reserve First Nations.

Geraldine Carr is co-writing a short film called Bannock and Gnocchi.

Tracy Carroll (Short & Suite Collective) is producing a second iteration of EDMONten- A Showcase of Ten-Minute Plays that will take place as a live streamed event from The Grindstone Theatre.

Alexandra Dawkins is recording and producing four original songs in collaboration with Edmonton based Velveteen Music studio, for the purposes of releasing digital and physical copies of an EP titled, "Virgo's Last Stand".

Layla Folkmann (Lacey and Layla Art) have produced a 2,500 square foot mural in Old Strathcona memorializing the creative life and influence of Edmonton musical legend Kendall Steven Chinn (Mr. Chi Pig), frontman for the globally recognized punk band SNFU.

Jessica Heine is recording a new album, Build Again.

Stefan Kjek is recording an album of original contemporary jazz compositions for piano trio.  

Nauzanin Knight is directing, producing and disseminating COLORBLIND, a 25-minute inversive romantic comedy short film.  

Kiona Ligtvoet (Making Space Collective) is curating a large-scale collaborative exhibition of early to mid-career BIPOC artists.

Krista Lin is researching and exploring dance creation of a work for three women, which will be developed into a performative score and a short film.

Patrick Lundeen (Pyretic Productions) is producing and directing the world premiere of the new Canadian play, Michael Mysterious, by Alberta-based playwright Geoffrey Simon Brown. The 10-day premiere will run at La Cité Francophone in October.  

Lianna Makuch is conducting a workshop for the new play in development titled Alina.

Dwayne Martineau is creating a body of work of experimental video, for a large-scale video and sound installation.

Jennifer Mesch is engaging in mid-development of a new multimedia dance work.

Omar Mouallem is expanding a broadcast-length documentary into a feature-length documentary film, The Last Baron, about the legacy of Lebanese Canadian immigrants manifested through Burger Baron, a fast-food chain with mysterious origins and a quirky cult following.

James Murdoch (The Dungarees) is recording new material with The Dungarees, incorporating new instrumentation into country music, including the Carnatic style, and Indian violin playing of Edmonton based musician, Gautam Karnik. Part of the publicity phase will incorporate a collaboration of Bhangra/Bollywood dance and Western Line dance, which will be filmed and released as a music video.  

Ryan Northcott is producing the short film, Tomato Can, about an aging First Nation's prizefighter as he enters a fight for his life against a rising prodigy in the sport of boxing.

Oyinbiboye Onanuga (Good Information) is presenting three concerts to be held in the summer of 2021, featuring hip-hop and jazz, and projection artwork.  

Zsofia Opra-Szabo is completing post-production and marketing for a stop motion animation short film.

Michelle Robb is developing and workshopping a new play, Shoe Peak ‘96. This coming-of-age tale explores adolescent friendships, legends, secret-keeping, and young love.  

Olivia Street is recording a 9-track full-length album.

Vern Thiessen (C2V Collective) is creating an interdisciplinary performance piece called DODONA.

Marianne Watchel (Tree Frog Collective) is collaborating with the artists of Tree Frog Collective as well as with artists who are new Canadians to produce monthly community arts events between May and September.

Colin Waugh is completing the post-production phase of a documentary film to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on several Edmonton classical musicians who are associated with the C'mon (chamber music old & new) Festival.

Clint Wilson is producing and releasing of a body of large format photographs.

[carriealena]

Here is a list of organizations offering grants to individuals, families, and vulnerable people who qualify.

[yegarts]

2021 Grants for Individuals & Collectives Recipients: Streams 1 and 2

Back in August of 2020, the Edmonton Arts Council announced a significant change to the way we fund artists and collectives. Focusing on fostering experimentation, supporting artists from Equity-seeking groups, and professional development and mentorship (addressing the Aims and Actions found in Connections & Exchanges: A Ten-Year Plan To Transform Arts & Heritage in Edmonton in Book 4, on page 8), we introduced Arts Grants for Individuals and Collectives. This re-vamped program is split into three streams, with different funding levels and application requirements, to help support a broader range of artistic exploration, development, and creation.

Stream 1 of the Arts Grants for Individuals and Collectives focuses on exploration and experimentation. This stream supports artists to work on current solo creation, experimentation or research activities. Grant amount were fixed at 5,000 to support subsistence while the artist takes the time to work.

We are excited to announce the 28 artists and projects that have been funded following the February deadline in the Exploration and Experimentation stream (stream 1). Congratulations!

Kyle Beal is expanding on his existing practice, experimenting with traditional mirroring techniques on glass, and working to incorporate colour into a charcoal-based drawing practice.

Stuart Beatch is developing a chamber opera based on the one-act play The 3 AM Subtext by Edmonton writer Matthew Stepanic.

Crandall Buffalo is researching and writing his first feature length script.  

Semin (Jay) Chun plans to explore creating LGBTQIA+ centered virtual circus magic shows that focuses on general accessibility.

Sylvia Douglas is writing the second draft of a feature length screenplay.

Trevor Duffy plans to research and develop a pre-school puppet screenplay to teach children how to identify and express their feelings.

Cynthia Fuhrer is creating a series of portrait paintings responding to COVID-19, experimenting with realism and abstraction while incorporating multimedia.

Hannah Gelderman will explore ways to apply her graduate research on solutions-oriented climate art to her solo art practice.

Wendy Gervais is developing a series of visual art assemblages, inspired by improvisational-based dances.

Ryan Hemphill is creating a series of music boxes with hand-built ceramic vessels and will create the musical composition for these boxes.  

Dana Holst will experiment with stone lithography.

Karen Klassen is exploring the technical challenges and the expressive possibilities of working with large-scale rock sculptures.

Jonathan Luckhurst is researching and developing ideas for participation in the Vancouver Biennale's Big Ideas and We Are Ocean projects.

Kelsey McMillan will distill written and recorded material into a collection of songs exploring vulnerability and emotional risk.

Susie Moloney plans to write a series of short stories in a new genre.

Hayley Moorhouse will write the second draft of the play Beatrice Again and Again.

Lyndal Osborne will research and create a large-scale installation inspired the occupants at Obed Lake, Alberta over 100 years ago.

Anahi Palomec is gathering traditional beadwork stories and methods under an established Albertian artist.

Christian Peres Gibaut will explore the idea of the dematerialization of mosaic.

Emily Rault is writing and refining songs for a future full-length recording.

Emily Riddle is researching a full-length historical novel examining the role of Indigenous women during the fur trade.

Sean Sedgwick plans to develop content for a future recording.

Angie Sotiropoulos is developing the interactive elements in an ongoing zine series.

Farren Timoteo will conduct the research, exploration, and experimentation of a new musical solo-play that explores the damaging impact of toxic masculinity in media entitled, Bad Boy.

Conor Wharton is investing time in songwriting and producing, as well as researching online marketing and branding.

Marlene Wurfel will experiment with joke-writing methodology to craft 500 jokes for middle-grade readers.

Laura Zhu is researching and experimenting with the dimensions of Chinese paper cutting.

Stream 2 of the Arts Grants for Individuals and Collectives focuses on skills and career development. This stream supports professional development and mentorship-based projects for artists and arts professionals. Projects may be solo or collective, and grants are available up to $10,000 based on actual or projected project expenses, including artist subsistence. In this round, eight artists were supported in this stream.  

As a professional dancer experienced in ballet, contemporary, and Ukrainian dance, Audrey Boccara is embarking on a mentorship with mentors to learn aerial dance (specifically aerial hoop, known as lyra), and how to meld aerial dance and high-level ballet.

Hemali Boorada will engage with mentors in Indian classical dance.

Fatme Elkadry is embarking on an apprenticeship to gain a deep understanding of weaving theory and practice so she can learn to weave the Kaffiyah -- a traditional scarf that is an important symbol of Palestinian identity. This project is symbolic of Fatme’s elusive journey to recognize and reclaim her Palestinian identity and will take steps towards reviving cultural textile heritage.  

Jonathan Kawchuk is engaging in mentorships with well-known sound engineers known primarily for their work in location sound, with the training carried out both online and physically distanced over the course of six months.

Wei Li will be participating in the Golden Artist Residency in New York.

Matthew O'Connor is looking to broaden his abilities as both a composer and sound designer for video games by learning Wwise software. Wwise communicates with video game engines on how to implement audio files into a game.

Cayley Thomas is pursuing a songwriting and audio engineering mentorship and self-directed residency.

Sheiny Satanove is working with mentor producer, arts leader and creative producer Owais Lightwala, for 24 sessions from May to July, 2021.

Stream 3 focuses on major artist-driven projects. Stay tuned for an announcement regarding Stream 3 recipients next week!