Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) announces Round 11 recipients of the Precipice Fund, with $61,100 in direct support to unincorporated visual art collectives, alternative spaces, and collaborative projects in and around Portland, Oregon.
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) is pleased to announce the grant recipients of Round 11 of the Precipice Fund, administered by PICA as part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program. Established in 2013, the Precipice Fund supports unincorporated, collaborative visual art projects, programs, and spaces in and around Portland, Oregon, with grants of up to $5,000 each.
Totaling 13 projects, 37 individual artists, and $61,100 in distributed funding, Round 11 grantees represent the range and diversity of contemporary artists and experimental art practices in our local region. Funded projects include exhibitions, publications, curatorial projects, workshops and educational series, critical and creative writing, video art, online content, live events, and community art programs. Some projects are intended for the general public, while others serve and/or center specific audiences and communities, including students at the Dr. MLK Jr. School; Black natural hair practitioners and their clientele; survivors of war, genocide, and violence; QTBIPOC creatives; trans artists; disabled and/or neurodivergent artists; descendants of emigrants from Eastern Europe; feminist horror fans; multilingual food lovers; and Portland’s underground club scene. All projects are collaborative, and grantees have one year to execute their project.
The Round 11 grantees were selected by an external review panel of local and non- local artists and arts workers. This year’s panel included: Elisheba Johnson, artist and curator (Seattle, WA); Molly Alloy, artist, accomplice, and museum nerd (Portland, OR); and cay horiuchi, artist, DJ, and co-founder of UωU collective (Portland, OR).
Below is an alphabetical list of the projects selected for funding in Round 11, including working titles, collaborating artist names, award amounts, and project descriptions (as provided by the artists). This information is also available at www.precipicefund.org.
PICA congratulates all of the grantees, acknowledges all 58 of the applicants, and extends sincere gratitude to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for continuing to invest in contemporary art and artists throughout the country.
- A
Abby Castillo, Nzinga Valentine
$4,000
A series of videos: two pieces of video art and two music videos from the 2022 abbymachines album A. The videos will play with the relationship of language to transgender identity through the motif of the letter “A.”
- Community School
Jade Novarino, Alix Jo Ryan, Margarita Reyes
$5,000
Community School is a network of artists, farmers, educators, and cooks working together to make shows and publications, host workshops and classes, and run food programming, all within the context of a communal home and a 1/2 acre farm. We believe in bridging agriculture, education, language, and nourishment for a more holistic approach to experiencing art.
- CORVID-19: Protection for the Next Plague
Ed Bourgeois, Timothy White Eagle
$5,000
Four Indigenous/mixed-race creatives will collaborate to develop a public exhibition of works centering found objects, reused and natural materials, installed space, and embodied curation in an exploration of audience expectations, community and belonging, and the active rebuilding of identity through interactive, mixed- medium storytelling. The project, CORVID-19: Protection for the Next Plague, will incorporate these themes into medicine objects installed on earth-based, temporary altars in Portland public spaces for human audiences and our non- human (crow) kin.
- Crossing the Redline/ Black Beyond Black History Month
Jon Wykoff, Kenyahta Sikes, Bobby Fouther, Liz Fouther-Branch
$5,000
PDX Suite Spot, Bobby Fouther, and Liz Fouther-Branch have partnered to create two powerful visual art exhibits recovering the untold stories of Black life in Old Town at the turn of the 20th century, present day, and the future. Crossing the Redline and Black Beyond Black History Month will give us a glimpse of Black life and culture through the eyes of a few local Black multigenerational artists.
- HI-VIZ
Rebecca Kauffman, Mo Geiger, Caryn Aasness, Olivia DelGandio, Aggy Hosey, Alex Montford
$4,600
HI-VIZ is a social practice art project working with the student crossing guards of the Dr. MLK Jr. School 5th Grade Safety Patrol. Through monthly visual, performing, and interdisciplinary arts workshops, we explore the crosswalk as a stage for creative expression and civic agency. This series of workshops builds skills and understanding that will culminate in our end-of-the-year public, participatory pedestrian parade, the Hi-Vizibility Crosswalk Spectacular.
- Kitchen
Kiara Walls, Paola De La Cruz, Nia Johnson
$5,000
Kitchen explores the relationship between hair and intimacy while centering the experiences of Black clientele and natural hair practitioners. The project will celebrate stories told by Black voices to archive the oral histories surrounding the physical space, care, and intimacy that is cultivated through hair styling. Kitchen will provide artistic form to the processes of this culture by sharing the perspectives of clients and beauticians while recognizing the historical/political context surrounding this specific experience.
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Kodes
Aleksandr Chernousov, Olga Maksakova
$4,000
The community-based art zine, Kodes, is aimed at heritage speakers. This laboratory is for the descendants of emigrants from Eastern Europe in search of their cultural identity. The laboratory provides several spots for participants interested in immigrant communities’ culture. The task of this project is to employ the techniques of documentary theater (verbatim) and comics (as mediums of visual storytelling) to find cultural codes and practice them for their lives in the present-day world.
- Lupinus
Olivia Camfield, Woodrow Hunt
$5,000
Lupinus is an experimental horror film based on the concept of Indigenous Revenge. Lupinus is set and filmed in Portland. The theory is based on Indigenous feminist revenge, horror, Deer Woman, psychological thriller, and justice. Indigenous peoples are bombarded with violent images and stories that portray us as victims. This project is being made to address the violence experienced by our kin without relying on the portrayal of Indigenous people as victims who cannot fight back.
- PDX Ballroom Revival Workshop Series
The House of Flora
$5,000
The House of Flora is a Portland-founded artist collective and Ballroom Kiki House. We aim to revitalize and reinvigorate the Portland Ballroom community by inviting and hosting artists of Ballroom to teach a series of workshops in Portland. Each session will be filmed and captured in pictures to preserve the wisdom shared. These workshops will inspire, educate, and cultivate the artistic expression of QTBIPOC individuals in Portland, across the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.
- Provecho Magazine
Kyle Yoshioka, Heldáy de la Cruz, Emilie Chen
$5,000
Provecho Magazine is a multilingual publication by and for BIPOC about the foods we love. Via intimate conversations, recipes, and photography, we tell stories about identity. Provecho Magazine is an opportunity for us to revel in the beauty of food as an anchor to ancestral pride, a means of fostering well-being through the sharing of meals, and an expression of love.
- Rabbit Moon
Porsche Ing, Dr. Jeudi Boulom, Vivienne Tang
$5,000
Cultural Art event ‘Rabbit Moon: Field of Dreams,’ shines exquisite light showcasing Tao Practitioners Dr. Jeudi Boulom D.C., Vivienne Tang, microbiologist, and Porsche Ing, M.P.H., each empowered by Dr. and Grandmaster Sha, founder of Tao Calligraphy. Their brave and compassionate mission is to transform deep negative emotional and mental traumas from war, cultural violence, and suffering via breakthrough art, cultural song and dance, and real-life sharing of the historic and traumatic Killing Fields experience.
- The Disabled Artists Project and Exhibition
Alexis Neumann, Marie Connor
$5,000
The Disabled Artists Exhibition and Project is a dedicated space to create discussion about and explore all of the aspects of disability, critically engaging with the disability community, Disability Studies, and the community at large. Disabled artists rarely get to define their own narrative and create work specifically engaging their disability. This project creates the space to speak authentically about disability and not have to cater to an audience that wants to be inspired. -
Vision World Presents: Unity Consciousness Rave
Jasmine Beach, Morgan Haigh, Hasmood
$3,500
The ethos of our project rests upon the intersection of urban degradation in a technocratic society, and a one size fits all nightlife economy; under the principle of Unity Consciousness, we strive to create a sonically driven, immersive, inclusive club experience that prioritizes harm reduction. Together, our cultural awareness is bound by Portland’s underground club scene, and our collective response is an inherent need to make space for a new, deliberate point of view.
