Three Broward Artists Receive 2022 South Florida Cultural Consortium Awards

Three Broward artists have been named recipients of the 2022 South Florida Cultural Consortium (SFCC) Awards.

Presented to preeminent South Florida artists through the SFCC 2021-2022 Visual and Media Artists Program, the three Broward artists are among this year's 12 award recipients who also include six artists from Miami-Dade County, two from Palm Beach County, and one from Monroe County. The Consortium is an alliance of the arts councils of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach Counties. The awards, which are conferred at either the $15,000 or $7,500 level, are among the largest such honors accorded by local arts agencies to visual and media artists in the United States. The three Broward artists have each received $15,000.

The 2022 SFCC recipients are:

• Broward County: Francesco Lo Castro, Carrington Ware, and Addison Wolff
• Miami-Dade County: Farley Aguilar, Nereida Garcia-Ferraz, Moira Holohan, Beatriz Monteavaro, Ema Ri, and Asser St Val
• Palm Beach County: Gabino Castelan, and Carin Wagner
• Monroe County: Victoria Mata

Celebrating 34 years in 2022 the SFCC has awarded over $4 million in grants to more than 300 artists. In addition to receiving the grant, the artists take part in an exhibition hosted and organized by a visual arts institution in one of the five counties. An exhibition featuring the work of the 2022 recipients will take place at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami with an anticipated opening in April 2023.

Upcoming Deadline and Application Workshops for Artists

• Application deadline for the 2022 - 2023 SFCC Program for Visual and Media Artists is Monday, October 24, 11:59 pm, 2022. Artists interested in applying can find additional information here.

• Online Workshops to guide artists in August and September with their applications and are free to attend. View dates and register online. http://www.miamidadepublicart.org/#fellowship

Broward's 2022 SFCC Recipients

Francesco Lo Castro was born in Catania, Italy and is based in Oakland Park, Florida. He studied visual arts at Florida Atlantic University, and works in painting, sculpture, site-specific installation and digital media. Lo Castro's work examines underlying nodes that make up physical reality. At its center lies a drive to recollect and arrest memories, as well as a future-forward aesthetic that dares to question the boundaries of biology and technology, the physical and the virtual, charting a holistic, common space within the increasingly fluid boundaries that are shaping contemporary culture.

Carrington Ware was born in Rome, Georgia and lives and works in Dania Beach, Florida. She received a Master of Fine Arts from Florida International University in Studio Art. Ware uses video and various other mediums to explore ideas of black joy as a form of self-care and resistance. Recently, her practice has shifted into visually combining video and installation to create experimental archival narratives of the black family based on familial stories and memories.

Addison Wolff was born in Winter Park, Florida and lives and works in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Wolff received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. Wolff's practice explores queer identity, expression, and sexuality. He examines themes of evolution, time, personal identity, societal influences, and code switching through the abstraction of caudiciform, caudex-forming, plants into bisque ceramic sculptures incorporating layers of broken color rendered in a variety of additions and combinations of polymers that employ queer aesthetics, and materials of queer provenance.

All of this year's recipients were selected through a two-tier panel process which included the participation of regional and national arts experts. The 2021-2022 regional panel, whose adjudications are based on the evaluation of the artists' work as evidenced by the work samples submitted, included: Juliana Forero, Ph.D, Founder and Chief Curator of Nomad Projects, Adjunct Professor, NSU Florida (Broward); Zoraye Cyrus, SFCC 2021 Recipient (Broward); Melissa Wallen, Director, De la Cruz Collection (Miami-Dade); John McGurk, Director, Sarah Gavlak Gallery (Pam Beach); and Donnamarie Baptiste, Principle, Creative Industry (Miami-Dade). The submissions selected by the regional panel for further consideration were forwarded for final adjudication and selection to the national panel, which was comprised of: Jean Cooney, Director and Chief Curator, Times Square Arts, New York, NY; Toccarra H. Thomas, Director, Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA; and George Scheer, Executive Director, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA.

The Broward Cultural Division advances arts and culture throughout greater Fort Lauderdale by investing in the creative sector and providing capacity building opportunities for artists, organizations and creative talent through events and activities that fuel Broward's creative infrastructure. The Cultural Division includes the county's Public Art & Design program, as well as grant programs that provide over $4.5 in annual support for Broward-based cultural organizations and artists, and engages the community in education and advocacy initiatives that support arts education at the local, state and federal levels. For more information on programs, grants, calls-to-artists and more, visit Broward.org/Arts.

The South Florida Cultural Consortium is a regional initiative in support of the arts governed by an Interlocal Agreement among the counties of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach. The Consortium's members are the local arts agencies of these five counties, including the Broward County Cultural Division, the Arts Council of Martin County, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, and the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County. The Consortium works to foster cooperation across the South Florida region to help develop and promote the work of cultural organizations and artists and the audiences that they serve. Its programs and services range from the Visual and Media Artists Program to regional arts education and cultural tourism cooperative ventures. The South Florida Cultural Consortium is one of the most successful regional arts alliances in the nation, demonstrating that by sharing resources and best practices, the arts can thrive across a burgeoning five-county area.

The South Florida Cultural Consortium is funded with support from The National Endowment of the Arts, The Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Arts Council, the Boards of County Commissioners of Broward, Miami-Dade, Martin and Monroe Counties, and the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County.

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