Queer|Art Announces Spring 2021 Grants Winners

Queer|Art, NYC's home for connecting and empowering generations of LGBTQ+ artists, has announced the judges for the second annual Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists: photographer and visual narrator Texas Isaiah, model, performer, and fashion illustrator Connie Fleming; and visual artist Lyle Ashton Harris. Applications opened on March 31st, on International Transgender Day of Visibility, and will close on June 30th, at the end of Pride month.

Developed and named in partnership with Mariette Pathy Allen, Aaryn Lang, and Serena Jara to shed light on the under-recognized contributions of Black trans women visual artists, this annual $10,000 grant is awarded to draw attention to an existing body of work and provides critical support for the winning artist's continuing work. The first of its kind, the Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists aims to correct the exclusion of Black trans women from the larger art canon and uplift profound lineages of Black trans women artistic practices, mapping avenues for future generations.

The Illuminations Grant is made possible entirely through support provided by visual artist Mariette Pathy Allen, whose body of photographic work over the last forty years has been squarely focused on expanding cultural consciousness around gender and transformation. This year, Mariette Pathy Allen has decided to expand the grant to further recognize finalists for their artistic achievements. Moving forward, Queer|Art is pleased to announce the grant will provide a $1,250 award to each of the four finalists, in addition to the $10,000 awarded to a winner each year. The winning artist will receive professional development resources, including a studio visit with each participating judge, to bolster their creative development in the field.

"We had a very successful first year," states Pathy Allen. "Many highly qualified, creative women and femmes applied from all over the USA. We encourage artists who applied to the first cycle to re-apply, especially as we've revised and expanded our application process to create more opportunities for success."

The development of this grant was stewarded by consultant and writer Aaryn Lang, working in collaboration with Mariette Pathy Allen, Serena Jara, and Queer|Art. "The Illuminations Grant not only highlights the lacking representation of Black trans women in the visual arts, but also seeks to confront the systemic barriers that deny them artistic opportunities and a sustainable craft," says Lang. "By supporting this grant, Mariette Pathy Allen challenges herself and the art industry to see Black trans women as more than mere subjects, while forging a new pathway for visual artists within this community to thrive." Throughout her work, Lang champions the social, economic, and political well-being of the transgender community, specifically the needs of Black transgender women.

Qualified artists must be self-identified Black trans women and trans femmes working in visual art and based in the United States. The Illuminations Grant is for early-career artists of any age, and is particularly interested in visual artists working in 2D and 3D art forms. Applications are open through June 30, 2021 and the grant will be awarded September 2021. For questions, visit our FAQ or email Illuminations Grant Manager ray ferreira at rferreira@queer-art.org.

Queer|Art has also announced the winner of the 2020 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant, Rraine Hanson. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker will receive a $7,000 cash grant, as well as studio visits with members of the judges panel in support of their creative and professional development.

Hanson was one of 148 applicants hailing from 24 different states who applied for the Hammer Grant in its fourth year, winning for a project currently entitled Mid Autumn. Hanson's project is a reflective meditation on gender identity and the confinement within cisheteronormative binaries, visualized through the gaze of a queer teenager upon their school teacher and her life. As the childhood memory unfolds, the story explores the blurred lines between influence, desire and obsession.

The Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant is an annual grant awarded to self-identified lesbians for making visionary moving-image art. The grant is supported directly by funds provided by the estate of legendary lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer (1939-2019), and administered through Queer|Art by lesbians for lesbians, with a rotating panel of judges. This year's judges included undisciplinary artist and writer Gelare Khoshgozaran, visual artist, filmmaker, and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman.

Rraine Hanson (she/they/he) is a queer, gender-nonconforming, Jamaican filmmaker, most interested in utilizing design and mixed media to tell stories centering the experiences and imaginations of queer and trans people of colour. They hold a BA in Media Production from Emerson College, where they debuted their thesis film, The Divine Femmunity. Since then, the film has been screened at the 2019 Queer Woman of Colour Film Festival, art exhibitions in South Florida, drive-in programming in Los Angeles, as well as online through the work of organizations like The Woven Colours and the Fronteiras Collective. When they're not obsessing over new ways to experiment with their own storytelling, they work in the television world helping art departments build all kinds of different worlds. The hands on building experience informs the methodology behind all their personal creative endeavours, both written and visual.

This year's judging panel remarks, "Rraine's work is very unique. Their tactile analog approach and use of space and the in-between moments are especially exciting. Her exploratory strategies of representation are reminiscent of Barbara and we're really excited to see Mid Autumn come into fruition. Raine is a filmmaker with a voice that is super fresh and it's clear that they are trying to carve out their own place."

The company has announced the winners of The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers: Courtney Webster and Meg Turner, and runners-up Bianca Sturchio and riel Sturchio. This year, the winner and the runner-up are each a collaborative duo, with projects focused on community building and engagement.

Courtney Webster and Meg Turner will receive a $10,000 cash grant to support the development of their project, Patricide, which interrogates dominant culture and its reproduction of tropes that reinforce the image of the ideal or heroic body as almost exclusively a white male body. Often centering Webster, a queer person of color, as a heroic and swoon-worthy protagonist, the artists render visible an alternative lexicon wherein the erased and invisible become seen, empowered, and celebrated. On receiving the 2021 Robert Giard Grant, Webster and Turner write, "this funding and recognition will allow us to expand the mediums we use and to open up access to more spaces to share it with the public. As two queer artists we are so excited to have the support of the Robert Giard Foundation and Queer|Art for this project."

Runners-up Bianca Sturchio and riel Sturchio will receive a $5,000 cash grant to support their collaborative photo-documentary project, Chasing Light, which platforms self-expression and provides visibility to individuals at the intersection of LGBTQ+, non-binary, and chronically ill or disabled identity. riel Sturchio and Bianca Sturchio are particularly eager to move forward with their work and support underrepresented queer artists, writing, "this award supports our vision of opening up Chasing Light to other folks at the intersection of non-normativity, disability, and LGBTQ+ identity. We believe there is great power in vulnerability and sharing stories, and feel grateful for the ability to initiate this new expansion."

Organized in partnership with The Robert Giard Foundation and Queer|Art, The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers supports and promotes self-taught, early career or otherwise emerging LGBTQ+ artists, awarded on a yearly basis. This support is vital for emerging artists, who may lack the financial resources or institutional support available to more established artists. At 272 submissions, a record number of applications were submitted for review this awards cycle. The judging panel comprised artists, curators, and arts professionals across the United States and Europe including: Mariama Attah, Emily Oliveira, Efrem Zelony-Mindell, Leonard Suryajaya, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya.

Courtney Webster is an independent film director, producer, and media accessibility activist who most recently produced the Thank God For Abortion anthem video with the artist Viva Ruiz. Meg Turner employs printmaking, photography, sign making, and installation to focus on queer fantasy and contemporary critique. Her first solo museum show, Here & Now, opened at The Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans in 2019.

Webster and Turner began their collaborative photo practice in New Orleans in 2015. Merging their filmmaking and photography practices, Webster and Turner carefully research, plan and build each shoot collectively. Their series, Patricide, has been exhibited in part at the New York gallery, Wild Project. According to the artists, the series "has always been about questioning dominant narratives in the media and understanding them as the mechanism that deliberately manufactures who is legitimate and entitled to dignity and power. These narratives impact the ways we live, develop our identities, and ultimately figure out how to exist in communities." The work was accompanied with public street murals and has additionally been documented in the UK Magazine, Heroine. Individual works from the series have also been shown across New York and New Orleans in places including The Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Bureau of General Services Queer Division, BRIC Arts, Wallach Gallery, and the University of New Orleans Gallery.

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