Precipice Fund is proud to announce our Round 10 (Spring 2022) grant recipients. Totaling 13 projects, 48 individual artists, and $61,200 in distributed funding, Round 10 grant recipients represent the range and diversity of contemporary artists and experimental art practices in our local region. Each grantee has been awarded the full amount they requested. Some projects are intended for a general public, while others serve and/or center specific audiences and communities, including queer youth; Indigenous adoptees; currently incarcerated artists; trans artists; neurodivergent artists; Palestinian artists, activists, and allies; QTBIPOC creatives; and communities in East Portland. All projects are collaborative, and grantees have one year from receipt of the grant to execute their project.
The Round 10 grantees were selected by an external review panel of both local and non-local artists and arts workers. This year’s panel included: Tai Carpenter, philanthropist, gallerist, and archivist (Portland, OR); Crystal Cortez, sound and new media artist and educator and former Precipice Fund grantee (Portland, OR); and Râna San (Seattle, WA), intermedia artist, filmmaker, and Artistic Director at Northwest Film Forum.
The following PICA staff oversee Precipice Fund programming and operations:
Roya Amirsoleymani, Artistic Director & Curator of Public Engagement, PICA | Managing Director, Precipice Fund
Kristan Kennedy, Artistic Director & Curator of Visual Art, PICA | Founding Director, Precipice Fund
Kevin Holden, Programs Assistant, PICA | Coordinator, Precipice Fund Round 10
GRANTEES
Al-Awda (the Return), Palestine Futurism | $5,000
Ramzy Farouki, Alexandria Saleem, Sarah Farahat, Naira Bittar, Iman Labaniah
The Center for Study and Preservation of Palestine plans to create our first large scale artifact, a mural designed collaboration with local muralist Sarah Farahat. The mural is entitled al-Awda (the return); a phrase used by Palestinians that holds hope for the time that those forcibly displaced in the diaspora by the illegal occupation state will be able to return in peace to our indigenous homelands. A community activation will conclude the mural’s installation.
Art Club Community Night | $5,000
Sierra Gonzalez, Fannie Grimes, Kai Soderstrom, MJ Oliveras
Art Club Community Night is a creative community project providing for 10-15 local Black and Indigenous, LGBTQIA2S+ visual artists in deep SE Portland. We will meet twice a month for six months, our program culminating with a group gallery show, allowing all involved artists to display their work. We dream of hosting a space where artists have access to free materials and supplies, support in rooted community, and restorative creativity.
Black and Pink PDX Zine | $1,200
Sierra Kind, Maya Warda, Jay Lundy
Black and Pink PDX is working on our second zine guided by our inside (incarcerated) members filled with visual art, poetry, essays, and collective updates. We began our Oregon-specific creative/informational zine in collaboration with our inside members and outside penpals in late 2020. We will use grant funds to publish an expanded version of our zine, to be distributed to our inside members and available to the public based on feedback.
Black Epistemes | $5,000
Melanie Stevens, maximiliano, Ahsante Sankofa, kiki nicole
Nat Turner Project has commissioned Portland-based writer and fugitive intellectual Ahsante Sankofa Foree to write a book (working title: Black Epistemes) of essays of dheir musings on life and art, based on a series of one-on-one conversations we will facilitate between dhem and a select group of Black artists and scholars. The book will be edited by poet and artist kiki nicole and co-published with a local literary press.
Keeks Mag, Issue 02 | $5,000
Keana Marrero, Carlos Valle, Eric Zendejas
Keeks Mag is an exploration of self and community through writing, visual art, journaling prompts, quizzes, story-telling, and crafts curated by local QTBIPOC artists. Keeks Mag is motivated by the physical preservation of modern visual art. It’s a tactile relic folks can reflect on and share with future generations and our future selves. Our purpose is to honor creatives and hold space for intimate conversations within ourselves and collectively.
Perception TRANSformed Gallery Showing | $5,000
Mia Francoso, Chester Hester, Wainani Paikai
An immersive art gallery exhibit that showcases 5 different photoshoots centering BIPOC Trans folks of Portland. Each respective photoshoot will be displayed with 3D/physical art elements that coincide with the theme of the shoot. The opening night will be a celebration and invitation for other QTPOC artists to perform such as poetry readings, dance, and DJs. Our goal is to uplift the marginalized while bringing folks together to honor the diversity of Portland.
Queer Migrations: A Field Guide | $5,000
Pilar Gallego, Rabbit aL Friedrich
Taking field guides as a point of departure, “Queer Migrations” draws parallels to bird migratory patterns, the quest for resources and habitable environments, to generate a collective archive centering the Portland queer community’s varied experiences. Our project asks: How is queer migration today different from prior decades? Where are queers finding stability amidst growing income inequality and political divide? What specific factors pull us in or push us out of cities and towns?
Reclaiming Queer Wear: A Youth-Led Fashion Statement | $5,000
Lillyanne Pham, Olivia DelGandio
Lillyanne Phạm and Olivia DelGandio will use fashion making and wearing to celebrate queerness and uplift youth-led decision making. From August 2022 to May 2023, we will collaborate with LGBTQIA+ teens in the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and Art Club at Parkrose High School. We will use after-school meetings as a co-learning space built by queer ideating, fashion experimentation, and embodied awareness. These designs will be showcased at our fashion show in May 2023.
sensitive content | $5,000
maximiliano, Elizabeth Bilyeu, coco madrid, stevie biga, eric fury, nadia marsden
A QTBIPOC group collaborative exhibition, multimedia experience, market, and public programming at Paragon Art Gallery. Grown from a residency of five QTBIPOC artists joined to collaboratively create work around “sensitive content,” the concept of QTBIPOC desirability, pleasure, censorship, relations to systems seeking our demise, asking the question: who’s getting censored, who’s doing the censoring? What violent systems it’s based on? With performances, workshops, dj, dance sets, a collaborative artist talk.
Under the Moon Project | $5,000
Carlee Smith, Jack Malstrom, Chloe Alexandra Thompson
Under the Moon Project will record and share the translated stories of Indigenous and First Nations adoptees and survivors of the foster care system. As people with this unique lived experience, we have always shared our stories with each other under the light of the moon. This project is an acknowledgement and continuation of the sacred space adoptees and former foster children have created for ourselves to share our experiences with each other.
UwU & Friends | $5,000
Cay Horiuchi, Adam Lucero, Ryan Bunao, Bianca AE Mack, Haevyn, Jack Malstrom
UwU & Friends is a socially engaged multidisciplinary nightlife event series organized by UwU artist collective, uplifting Portland’s QTBIPOC and T/GNC communities. This project will: actualize a co-imagined world through site-specific collaboration, performance art, installation, and music; showcase established and emerging talents to invigorate the regional arts ecology; and develop a new mode of nightlife in Portland, divesting from the capitalist realm, centering community care and experimental collaborations among marginalized community members.
Videotones TV | $5,000
Quinn Gancedo, Joel Stotesbery, Andy Louie, Chanel Conklin, Mohamed Omar, Endale Abraham
Videotones TV is a multimedia and video art project as well as a collaboration between a neurodiverse group of artists in Portland. It will take the form of a television variety show showcasing video work, narrative film, performances by local musicians, artist interviews, local poetry, and more to be broadcast on public access television. Additionally, it will be premiered at a free screening event open to the general public.
Wall to Wall Soul | $5,000
Bobby Smith, Brian Mumford, Paul Knauls, Sr.
Wall To Wall Soul pays tribute to Albina’s historic Black musician community of the late 20th century. Through a combination of photography, newsprint, and poster art, archivist Bobby Smith and designer Brian Mumford have preserved, restored, and reimagined obscure media which documents this musical era. In collaboration with Paul Knauls (aka the “Mayor of Albina”), this work has engaged elders in the Albina musician community to source material and amplify their musical legacy.