Queer|Art Announces 2024 Grant Recipients

Queer|Art has announced the 2024 winners and finalists for two annual grants: the Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists, and the Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Artists.

In recognition of their conceptual achievements, technical execution, and rigorous commitment to queer storytelling, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Nyala Moon has been awarded the Illuminations Grant, and Iowa City-based collaborative duo riel & Bianca Sturchio have been awarded the Robert Giard Grant. As this year's honorees, Moon and the Sturchios will each receive a $10,000 cash grant and professional development support to elevate their practices. 

Developed and named in partnership with Mariette Pathy Allen, Aaryn Lang, and Serena Jara, the Illuminations Grant draws attention to an existing body of work, sheds light on the under-recognized contributions of Black trans women visual artists, and provides critical support to their continuing work. For its fifth year, this national grant was juried by Tourmaline, M Lamar, and jaamil olawale kosoko. 

The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers supports and promotes self-taught, early career or otherwise emerging LGBTQ+ artists. The international grant was organized in partnership with The Robert Giard Foundation from 2020–2022 when the Foundation ceased operations. This year's grant was generously funded by Joan Cadden, Glenn Stancroff, and the Robert Giard Foundation, and was judged by Jess T. Dugan, Sarah Burke, Tommy Kha, and Jacqueline Francis. After five years, 2024 will be Queer|Art's final year hosting the Robert Giard Grant. Speaking to Moon's winning body of work, 2024 Illuminations Grant Judge jaamil olawale kosoko writes: “Nyala Moon is an extraordinary artist whose work leaves a lasting impression, inviting sustained engagement and deep reflection. Her unique brand of humor, fresh and macabre, rises from personal trauma, creating a dynamic tension that captivates and challenges the viewer. With impeccable timing and technically sound filmmaking, Nyala masterfully explores YouTube culture as a cinematic language, weaving it into a storytelling style that feels both novel and immediate. Her voice is one that demands to be seen and heard, and her stories deserve to reach a wider audience.”

On the Sturchio's winning photographic project, 2024 Robert Giard Grant judge Jess T. Dugan remarks: “I was very moved by Bianca and riel Sturchio's series ‘before the last lilac blooms.' Their collaborative project is sensitive, formally rigorous, and socially important. It was energizing to see a body of work engaging with queerness, family, and ability/disability, tenderly made from the lived experiences of the artists. I'm excited to watch as this project continues to evolve and make its way into the world.”

For the 2024 Illuminations Grant, four artists were acknowledged as distinguished finalists: Fatima Jamal, Steven Anthony Johnson II, Marcelline Mandeng Nken, and Ari Moore. For the 2024 Robert Giard Grant, two photographers were acknowledged as distinguished finalists: Su Cassiano and Andina Marie Osorio. Each of the six finalists will receive a cash prize of $1,250, bringing this year's grand total of awarded funds to $27,500.

Learn more about this year's esteemed roster of winners and finalists at queer-art.org/giard-grant & queer-art.org/illuminations-grant.

About Nyala Moon, Winner of the 2024 Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists 

Nyala Moon is a graduate of City College with an MFA in film production. Nyala was also a 2020-2021 Queer|Art Film Fellow, a TV writing fellow for Hillman Grad, and a Film Fatales director fellow. Nyala's latest film, How Not To Date While Trans, has won audience and best short film awards at Inside Out Toronto's LBGT Film Festival, Wicked Queer Boston's LGBT Film Festival, Translation Seattle's 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival, and NewFest 22. In June 2022, Nyala was selected as a 2022 NewFest/Netflix New Voices Filmmaker Grant winner. Her film, How Not To Date While Trans, was selected for distribution through Frameline's New Voices program. Her latest short film, Dilating For Maximum Results, won the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding US short at OutFest and Newfest. Filmmaker Magazine named Nyala one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2023.

Moon was first inspired to pursue acting, but eventually found her true calling as a filmmaker creating stories that showed trans women as full people who experience a full life. Her first short film after grad school, How Not To Date While Trans, was made in defiance of what cishet people thought the trans dating experience was. Moon takes issue with the dogmatic approach and opinion on how a trans woman should date, and strives to shift that ideology. She says, “my work has been and will be for two different audiences. I want my trans siblings to watch my work and feel seen, but I also want to teach cishet people how to love us… I use the niche topic specific to the trans community and tie it with universal themes like love and loneliness. My greatest mission as an artist is to universalize the trans experience for everyone.”

On receiving the 2024 Illuminations Grant, Moon says, "Thank you so much to Queer Art for this incredible honor. Being recognized by a community that uplifts trans artists means the world to me. This grant is not only a personal milestone but also a reminder of the importance of telling our stories authentically and unapologetically. I'm excited to continue creating work that speaks to our experiences and contributes to the ever-evolving narrative of trans lives."

About riel & Bianca Sturchio, Winners of the 2024 Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers

Bianca Sturchio (she/her) is a social worker and mixed-media artist, holding both a Master of Social Work (MSW, 2020) and a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW, 2019) from the University of Southern Maine. Bianca explores the intersection of social work and photography, studying how art can serve as both a communicative and therapeutic tool in clinical and non-clinical settings.

riel Sturchio (they/she) uses their experiences as a queer, chronically ill artist to provoke, and criticize socially idealized normative fantasies of beauty, ability, and gender identity. They pair their academic background in critical queer phenomenology, bodily disorientation, and affect to explore the sculptural tactility of sound, the mediation of distance through varieties of touch, and the value of bodily awareness.

Their winning project, before the last lilac blooms, is a fifteen-year photographic project that integrates the intimate world-building between queer non-normative twins. Through a mix of documentary and constructed images, they counter their experiences with illness and disease through immersive dream-like color.

On receiving the 2024 Robert Giard Grant, the Sturchios reflect: “This award provides crucial support for producing our first solo exhibition in the Midwest, which will take place during Pride month. In a time where LGBTQ+ rights and women's rights are increasingly under threat—nationally, but especially in Iowa—the opportunity to showcase this work feels particularly significant. Opportunities like this allow us to make the work that is most meaningful to us, and we are so grateful to receive resources and support from this year's jurors.”

About the 2024 Grant Judges

The 2024 slate of judges were selected by Queer|Art, and include a broad diversity of visual artists, performers, curators, activists, educators, and authors from around the country. The Illuminations Grant judges included interdisciplinary artist and composer M. Lamar; artist, filmmaker, and activist Tourmaline; and author, performance artist, and curator jaamil olawale kosoko. The Robert Giard Grant judges included editor-in-chief of Them Sarah Burke, interdisciplinary artist Jess T. Dugan, historian and curator Jacqueline Francis, and photographer Tommy Kha.

Learn more about the 2024 juries at queer-art.org/giard-grant & queer-art.org/illuminations-grant.