With $15,000 in funding from Added Velocity, five previous grantees under the Velocity Fund initiative move their community projects forward this year. Added Velocity will allow these independent local artists to build on the success of their initial project grant to enhance the activist projects linked to neighborhoods and communities around the city. The artists, who mostly work without the support of an umbrella organization, use the funding to help stabilize and enhance their work.  The Velocity Fund is part of the Regional Regranting Program of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Added Velocity is funded by the William Penn Foundation. We encourage artists working in Philadelphia who wish to, or already do work with communities to apply to the Velocity Fund, which is the entry point for Added Velocity. The community need is great, and artists’ projects offer wonderful creative solutions. And the open call for 2022 Velocity Fund projects will launch in March, 2022.

2021-2022 Added Velocity projects:

• Alumbra (Ana Cecilia Gonzalez*) – Alumbra will expand the scope of its community impact by collaborating with the youth to create a night time destination with a long-term light art installation.
• Al Mudhif – A Confluence (Yaroub Al Obaidi*) – This project will dismantle and document Al Mudhif, a traditional Iraqi ceremonial structure made entirely out of phragmites reed, after parts of the structure were affected by the Ida hurricane, and then activate it for new audiences through digital resources and printing a catalog.
• The Beardmobile (John Jarboe*) – The Beardmobile is a mobile performance and protest unit built into a 15 foot box truck.
• Choreto (Diente Fo*) – Gente de Tierra reintroduced the abundance that lives within and around our Black and Brown community; and from this, for the next year, Casa Sabera will prioritize embracing our blessings, and honoring our ancestors.
• Expanding Sanctuary (Kristal Sotomayor*) – Expanding Sanctuary is a (26 min) documentary about the campaign to end the sharing of the police database with Immigration and Customs Enforcement led by Juntos and the Latinx immigrant community in South Philly.

(*denotes lead organizer of the project)