2023 RECIPIENTS
DEBORAH ASCHEIM
2023
Justice Drawings
Justice Drawings is a collaboration with families impacted by law enforcement violence. Deborah Ascheim creates drawings of people who were killed while in custody to help their families with healing and support their fight for justice. Families share photos and stories and in turn, Deborah gifts them with the original signed artworks and grants them an unrestricted license to use the images for any purpose. Thirty-three drawings and stories were published in the Justice Drawings book in June 2023. This grant will enable her to work on an expanded edition that will include more participants and be printed in both English and Spanish.
HECTOR GOMEZ
2023
Stirring the Pot: California's Home Kitchen Uprising
Stirring the Pot: California's Home Kitchen Uprising is a vibrant short documentary film by food filmmaker Hector Gomez. It delves into the 2019 Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations Act that allows Californians to turn their homes into small restaurant businesses. The documentary aims to raise awareness about this underutilized law, inspire viewers to champion for its wider adoption, and showcase how these home kitchens can foster tighter-knit communities. The film will be made available for public presentation, with a focus on reaching California food and low-income economic development groups, in a bid to stir up a culinary revolution that empowers individuals and enriches communities.
DARRYL REUBEN HALL
2023
Dinner with Booker T.
Dinner with Booker T., a play written by Darryl Reuben Hall, tells the story of Booker T. Washington's profound journey, from his humble beginnings as a child born into slavery to his remarkable ascent as a trailblazing educator and visionary leader, to dining at the White House. This historic dinner epitomizes the power of dialogue and diplomacy, of bringing opposing forces to the table to find common ground and weaves an intricate narrative that resonates with the contemporary themes of our time. The play further engages the community through post-performance workshops for attendees and partnerships with local theater organizations.
MAYANTHI JAYAWARDENA
2023
The Peacox Community Market Mural Project
In 1964, southeast Raleigh welcomed its only neighborhood store where “folks could pick up a drink, a snack, and catch up on community news.” Sadly, the Peacox Community Market has been closed since 2009. Nearly 60 years after its original opening, and a long-fought battle for rezoning, Jessica Peacock’s dream to re-open her great grandparents’ grocery store as a central third space for the neighborhood is coming true. Mayanthi Jayawardena is creating a mural that will reflect the shared vision for the market and serve as a catalyst for change and community engagement. It will serve as the first spark of life, re-igniting activity around the rebirth of this treasured community space in the neighborhood.
MARK MENJÍVAR
2023
La Misma Canción
La Misma Canción (The Same Song) will be co-authored by Mark Menjívar and local public school district students, teachers, staff, and families. The project will address the students’ ongoing racial, class, and/or migration trauma by making connections between the community and the birds that migrate from their home countries to where they are living now. Art lessons will encourage community discussion about family heritage, foster creative risk-taking, and celebrate local ecology. Drawing and design workshops will encourage students to make artistic decisions that directly impact the artwork’s outcome. The public welcome of these birds in the spring will also serve as a welcoming event for the families of the students.
LAURA ROBINSON
2023
Off the Wall/Under the Sky
To an artist, what is more compelling than a wall? Laura Robinson will use the 105-foot fence across the street from the AvantGarden Gallery in Santa Ana and fill it with large and small canvases created by local artists. She will invite poets, dancers, and musicians to participate in events to encourage community participation. It will be an interactive space, which can be expanded into the gallery and workshop areas. This project is designed to increase interaction between artists and community members. In addition to viewing the artwork as they walk or drive by, the public is welcome to participate with the artists in this sensory experience.
VERONICA ROSAS
2023
79 Ways to Die
Do you think Shakespeare is kind of boring? When you remove the self-indulgent monologues, all the murder and mayhem is really a lot of fun! 79 Ways to Die is an interactive show that takes a unique look at the various deaths featured in William Shakespeare’s works. The show features a female cast interpreting the male characters – giving a refreshing interpretation of the works of Shakespeare – and surprisingly, kids love it! Writer and director Veronica Rosas has shifted to an interactive show for school assemblies that gives students the opportunity to come up on stage and participate. With this show, she hopes to introduce Shakespeare to children in an engaging way that supports their long-term love of theater.
THERESE WESTIN & AMANDA CAMENISCH
2023
A Home is a Cloud
This is a participatory performance project and mentorship program to be held in collaboration with 15 refugees, migrants, and women who have experienced domestic abuse. Weekly workshops run by Therese Westin and Amanda Camenisch will utilize their trauma-based methodology of collective sound explorations, poetry, and gentle movement to create a safe environment for individual and collective exploration to blossom. The participants will make their own music for a final performance with the theme, “A Home is a Cloud.” The sound score will be recorded and pressed on vinyl, and all participants will be invited to a weeklong mentorship program where they will receive guidance on how to take their creativity further.
BUD HERRERA
2023
Myrtle Art Alley
“Myrtle Art Alley” is a community engagement project that lives in the Pacific Park neighborhood in Santa Ana, CA. Throughout the last few years, the area has witnessed an extremely high crime rate in an area primarily of low income Latinx residents. Bud and the Heavy Collective have been working alongside neighbors that uses art to create an environment that creates a safe space for all to be able to enjoy. Through this project, his goal is to continue to engage with community members of all ages through open dialogue and bring awareness of art as a therapeutic tool and creative outlet. They plan to offer free art supplies to students and children and promote journaling and drawing to express their creative visions.
JANNET GALDAMEZ
2023
commUNITY moves! Breath, Rhythm, Movement
commUNITY moves! is an Embodiology® based mind-body practice that originates from ancestral West African principles of human communication and performance practices where movement, language, and music combine. The program offers an opportunity to self-express through movement and be in a space of exploration, imagination, creativity, discovery, and connection. It also demonstrates the power of working in collaboration and what is possible when we engage in community. In collaboration with Teapot LA, Jannet will offer eight free sessions in outdoor spaces throughout South Central Los Angeles. The sessions are open to all ages and will be taught in English and Spanish
CHANTRELL LEWIS
2023
Why Wade?
With the support of a devised theatre approach, Chantrell will utilize film documentation, fine art, storytelling, interviews, and a structured live vocal and oratorical performance to share ancestral and generational triumph and trauma. This project is concerned with maternal lineage and the relationships between all woman-identifying mothers, aunties, daughters, and their continued lineage. It asks questions about identity, history, birth, generational patterns, and community development by utilizing interviews, literacy, and dramaturgy to devise an all-inclusive and culturally competent artwork. "Why Wade?" will be filmed and made into a videotaped documentary that will be made viewable to communities across the globe.
ELANA MANN
2023
Shake, Rattle, Roll
In 2019, Elana created two ceramic rattles to bring to street demonstrations that helped to amplify her presence and produced an energetic atmosphere at the protests and marches she attended. What began as a personal expression quickly grew into a project called “Shake, Rattle, Roll” involving multiple ceramic rattles with different messages and groups of people who play these rattles on the street. Elana is now working in collaboration with three Feminist collectives who will activate over 100 of her rattles on International Women’s Day in March 2023. For this project, these three collectives will invite their divergent communities to coalesce around envisioning a global Feminist future through sound, visuals, and participation.
ALKAID RAMIREZ
2023
Hood to Suburb
“Hood to Suburb” will track gentrification on Anaheim Blvd to contextualize and identify the drastic changes made to the area. Utilizing the photographic medium paired with Alkaid’s oral histories, and archived and personal documentation, it seeks to understand why the landscape is changing and who it is changing to please. The process of understanding these changes also opens the conversation as to how can these now-cemented changes can benefit the community directly. This investigation framework can be utilized in other communities around the nation who are struggling with these same issues. This is not an isolated problem we face.
JESSE RAMIREZ
2023
DUI-LANDIA
“DUI-LANDIA” is a culmination of a two-year project that arose from Jesse’s research on how DUI offenses, substance abuse, addiction, and stringent immigration policy and enforcement continue to negatively impact Latinxs in the United States. His thesis, ongoing social work career, and love for Chicano/Latinx art influenced him to create digital artwork centered on behavioral health topics, particularly DUIs, substance abuse, and immigration enforcement. He plans to launch a digital art campaign to bring community awareness about DUI offenses and their close relationship with immigration enforcement. Each art piece will include a QR code that links viewers to local mental health, legal, and housing resources.
KELLY RICHARDSON
2023
King Djefferson Film
A modern-day story of resilience, perseverance, and determination, King Djefferson follows the story of Djeferson Mendes da Silva, who grew up in extreme poverty in the city of Samba. He developed his performance skills at a local renegade circus, while repeatedly suffering terrible, painful losses in his life including losing his home in a landslide, resulting in months of homelessness, and the deaths of his mother and many of his siblings. In an inspiring story of struggle and redemption, Djeferson has been chosen by the people of Rio de Janeiro to represent them as the famous “King Momo” of Rio Carnival 2023. The film will screen in film festivals and hopefully on television to reach audiences far and wide.
ALICIA ROJAS
2023
With Honey in the Mouth - Con Miel en la Boca
This project focuses on examining the synchronicities between honeybees and human forced migration journeys. Migratory pollination has become essential to agriculture in many regions as pesticides have ravaged native pollinators. Like many parallel migration stories, both bees and humans have been forced to expand their territories for the survival of their colonies — all while they work the land to support food production and tend to children. There will be a public exhibition with an audio immersive experience that includes narratives and interviews of women migration stories, as well as a short documentary of the vision and process that it will be used as an educational component partnering with local school districts.
LACHLAN THOMPSON
2023
The Dreamweavers: Tales of Queer and Trans Survivors Told Through Tarot
During Pride Month (June 2023), Lachlan will present an exhibition that shares the stories of 12+ queer and trans survivors of sexual and relationship violence and their journeys of healing that can serve as an invitation for the community to deepen systems of care by using storytelling to connect across experience. These stories will be shared through their mixed media collage art, in the form of personalized tarot cards that are collaboratively created with the survivors themselves. There will be reflection prompts for community members to engage more deeply with the stories, as well as free peer support groups for queer and trans survivors that will be offered on Zoom and in-person to ensure survivors can join from anywhere.