Administered by RedLine Contemporary Art Center, the INSITE Fund announces 10 grantees to receive a total of $60,000 in grant funding, awarded to artists producing projects on Colorado’s Front Range.
Administered by RedLine Contemporary Art Center as part of the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Art’s Regional Regranting Program, the INSITE Fund awards grants ranging from $2,500-$9,800 to directly support independent artists and artist collectives working across all visual media in the Denver Metro and the Colorado Front Range.
“The Regional Regranting Program partners provide vital support for a dynamic range of artist-led projects that chart new creative territory in their communities,” says Khadija N. Adell, Regional Regranting Program Manager at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. “As one of the earliest members of the Warhol Foundation’s Regional Regranting Program, we are excited to see the INSITE fund’s announcement of its 2022 grantees which presents a number of ambitious public-facing projects in the Denver area.”
Funded projects challenge traditional notions of the visual arts by engaging communities in experiential art outside of the standard gallery setting. The INSITE Fund specifically supports public facing visual arts projects that take place beyond the studio, museum, art center, or gallery to make visible often unseen and
under-supported artistic activity—and to foster new communities and audiences around the work.
This year, the INSITE Fund engaged a diverse group of local and national jurors who selected ten unique projects to support. Our 2022 jurors include Autumn T. Thomas, Erika Righter, Evan Garza, Claude Smith, and Kate Perdoni. This granting cycle reflects Northern Colorado’s diverse artist community—culturally, economically, and geographically. The outcome is an exciting mix of performance, installation, quillwork, film, and more.
As 2022 INSITE Fund grantee Steven Yazzie shared,
“Redline and the INSITE grant have given me the needed support to continue creating work that I might otherwise have to self-fund, given the nature of many of my projects that work outside the conventional commercial space. In addition to monetary support, they ensure I have access to a network of other resources that further help in sustaining a more integrated art practice with the community.” Steven Yazzie, 2022 INSITE Fund grantee
2022 SELECTED PROJECTS
TRADITIONAL PLAINS INDIANS QUILLWORK – Danielle SeeWalker & Cecelia Bernice Bull Bear
Quillwork is a unique Indigenous art form that precedes the use of beadwork of Plains’ Indian tribes. Quillwork is often referred to as a dying art and opportunities for direct instruction are increasingly rare, especially in urban settings like Denver where many Native American people relocated to from Indian reservations. The overall objective of the project is to pass down direct teachings from Oglala Lakota elder and quillwork master, Cecelia Bull Bear, to our Native youth and community. The Red Road Project is an arts organization that fosters the empowerment of Native artists to create opportunities to keep our cultures alive. We are excited to support respected Native elder, Ms. Bull Bear, in transferring her quillwork knowledge through a series of workshops.
MUSUBI 結び//CONNECTIONS – Maki Teshima
Musubi will be a large-scale knot installation, consisting of thousands of colorful naturally dyed recycled fabric knots flowing across a vertical surface-the fence along Alameda Ave between Marion Parkway and Lafayette Avenue in Denver, Colorado. The work will flow with wind and passing cars and after creation the community will interact with it visually and will be invited to add knots. Kanou Musubi’s literal meaning is “wishing knot”. Each participant will put their individual wish into their knot as they tie it in a collective experience. Musubi’s figurative meaning is the act of connection. The goal of this project is to create a participatory, collective artwork that expands and evolves over time as more people interact with it and add their knot -wishes.
FIREFLY MUSIC – Lauri Lynnxe Murphy
Firefly Music uses motion and light-triggered sounds via cameras and programmed code to introduce Coloradans to the magic of fireflies through live webcasts. Audiences will be able to view live concerts on the web and in person where the flashing lights of the insects will trigger pre-programmed sounds and video for a unique experience each time. Musicians will be invited to program the sounds and then perform live improvisations with the projected video and triggered sounds in a collaboration with nature.
CM 2023 SUMMER PROGRAM – Collective Misnomer
Collective Misnomer (CM) is an artist-run project focused on exhibiting contemporary time-based art on the occupied Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe land in what is currently called Denver, Colorado. A strong anticapitalist and DIY ethic inform our curation and general mode of operations. Collective Misnomer has explored various ideas through its programming and has historically focused on subjects such as beauty, the landscape, decolonization, censorship, dystopian potential, alternative truths, sex, and absurdist humor to explore our political agenda.
GOLD KING & ASSOCIATES: DENVER – Steven J. Yazzie
Gold King & Associates: Denver, takes the form of a real estate sign, giving the appearance that the property may be for sale. If an interested party calls the phone number on the sign, they will hear a poem, quote, excerpt from a story, or personal writing addressing environmental concerns about urbanization, land use, over-development, colonization, or any range of expressions related to human impacts on the land. At the end of the voice recording, the caller may leave a message of their own, which will be archived in the form of an audio file and transcription in an email.
HOLDING PATTERN – LA Samuelson
Seated at the edge of a drained out swimming pool, an audience gazes down upon 3-5 rooftops fastened to the pool’s floor. The rooftops cap off small house-like structures that appear, from above, to extend through the floor of the pool, encased up to their rafters in the pool’s concrete. A dancer teases out physical impressions made on the body through friction with the roofing material, and tests out what can be done with memories we no longer have access to, but still feel the shape of.
Esenciales durante la pandemia y lo sigueremos siendo: Cronicas de la comunidad de inmigrantes y de asilo en Denver – Efraín Leal Escalera
Esenciales durante will collect and jointly analyze stories with essential employees as they recall their experiences and adaptations to the “new normal” as imposed by the pandemic. The collective wants to present relevant findings from the stories we collect in an accessible way via a process video that employs visual arts techniques, and which can possibly influence social policies that most often maintain essential employees at the margins. In addition to the creation of the video, the collective will invite families to explore other forms of art that can represent our research findings.
IRENE’S SPOT – Yazz Atmore
This project is the build out of retrofitted shuttle bus designed for the community that provides safe spaces for Denver’s Creatives. This mobile creative, fun and unique hub will be housed in a retrofitted shuttle bus that provides safe spaces for Denver’s creatives to expand their artistic horizons, connect with their communities & make magic. By providing Denver creatives with safe spaces and resources that enable them to work within their communities, gain hands-on experience, explore and experiment with new ideas, and grow their art practice; it births the opportunity for true healing and transformation to take place not only in our communities, but also the world.
Caravanas Culturales. Una Celebración de la Diversidad /Cultural Caravans. A Celebration of Diversity – Adriana Paola Palacios Luna & Luna Cultura
Caravanas Culturales – Cultural Caravans: little cultural festival to promote oral tradition, reading, art, and maker education with the Latinx and BIPOC communities. An intergenerational knowledge exchange to strengthen our culture and history.
ARIA – Bruce Tetsuya
After the death of her reclusive father, Aria ventures deep into the woods to clear out his cabin, when she encounters a supernatural presence.