Grantees All Years

American Masculinity

Denil, Markus

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

AMERICAN MASCULINITY is a collaborative project by Markus Denil and Marval Rex focused on expanding out collective memory of what it means to be trans/masculine today. Read More

Mosaic: An Immersive Artist’s Book of Immigrant Stories

Bayar, Tulu

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

"Mosaic" grew from healing, community workshops where immigrants shared stories, memories, and photos. I transformed these into a hand-bound artist’s book—an intimate, tactile archive celebrating resilience, belonging, and the layered experiences that shape American life. Read More

Good Fire, Bad Burn

Hager, Grace

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

Made in response to the recent wildfires across the Northern Hemisphere, this on-going project, titled Good Fire, Bad Burn, is a series of ceramic sculptures that speak to the powerful natural force of fire: harmful and helpful, and deeply connected to our warming planet. Read More

Portrait of a Woman

Cox, Rachel

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

My photographic project examines the personal and cultural stigmas associated with female infertility while also raising awareness for the millions of people who seek to build their families though assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Read More

Infinitesimal

Infinitesimal

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

Based on groundbreaking research about near-death experiences, Infinitesimal blurs the boundaries between science, memoir, theater, and music, transmuting chamber opera into an expansive sonic landscape. Infinitesimal was composed and performed by pianist Nicole Brancato and baritone Jeremy Weiss. Read More

Rescuing the Chinampería

Sorrentino, Joseph

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

My project documented efforts of farmers and nonprofits to save the chinampería, an ancient agricultural area in southern Mexico City, specifically in San Gregorio Atlapulco. Read More

In the Stillness of the Night

Kelin, II, Daniel A.

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

In Hawai'i's shrinking rainforests, a lone 'ōpe'ape'a (hoary bat) fights for its life. This multimedia fable plunges you into the unseen battle of the islands' only endemic land mammal. Its struggle against extinction symbolizes the wider threats to indigeneity—environmental, cultural, and human. Read More

Beauty for Ashes

Swinton, JaJa

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

Beauty for Ashes is a collection of drawings and paintings that refutes the slanderous narrative that "Black men are Absentee Fathers." This project confronts the diabolical ways Family Law marginalizes Black men, and underscores the resilience of Black Fathers. Read More

No More Walks in the Wood: Songs about Trees

Hinchliffe, Margaret

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

"No More Walks in the Wood" is an initiative to commission new classical works for voice and piano by Texas-based artists on the topic of trees and nature in Texas. Composers and poets wrote new music and texts, which were performed on a recital tour in Nacogdoches, Fort Worth, and Houston. Read More

Lest We Forget What Sustains Us: A Musical Natural History of Planet Earth

Shames, Germaine

Year Grant Awarded: 2024

A song cycle chronicling the natural history of our planet—past, present and future—from the Big Bang to the Age of Exploration, from industrialization to global warming, from planetary exodus to eco-enlightenment. Read More