In the spirit of Locust Projects’ artist-centric mission, WaveMakers take risks to experiment beyond traditional models for presenting art, creating innovative work that is accessible to the public via process, presentation, production, or publication.
The announcement of Cycle 11 marks $630,000 in WaveMaker incubator grants awarded to 127 of Miami’s most visionary artists, curators, and collectives since WaveMaker launched in Miami in 2015. Administered by Locust Projects, WaveMaker grants provide vital funds at critical moments in the development and implementation of publicly accessible, innovative projects across Miami-Dade County, including supporting the launch and long term sustainability of artist-run initiatives such as: Commissioner, Dimensions Variable, EXILE Books, Fringe Projects, Women’s Artist Archive Miami, Page Slayers, and Third Horizon Film Festival, among others.
Focused on supporting projects intended for non-institutional/non-traditional spaces accessible to the public, WaveMaker introduces audiences to innovative artistic practices, responds to issues and ideas relevant to our community, and serves as a catalyst for dialogue and exchange. Visit wavemakergrants.org to view all current and past WaveMaker grantees.
“As part of Locust Projects’ mission to ADVOCATE FOR ARTISTS, we support artists with opportunities and resources to propel next steps in their creative careers. Among those
resources is WaveMaker grants, a vital incubator grant providing Miami-based artists with funds to support their vision–from idea and implementation to sustaining their
work over the long-haul,” says Lorie Mertes, Executive Director at Locust Projects. “WaveMaker grants are unique in that they encourage anyone with a compelling idea to experiment and take risks in developing and realizing innovative visual arts-based projects that add value to our community.”
The 2024 WaveMaker selection panel included: Katerina Llanes, creative producer/curator who organized the recent #MakingMiami projects; Karen McKinnon, former WaveMaker grantee (2023); Selene Preciado, Curator and Director of Programs, LACE, Warhol Foundation Regional Regranting partner in L.A.; and Njeri Rutherford, Program Manager, CultureSource, Warhol Foundation Regional Regranting partner in Detroit.
The eleven grant recipients were selected from 97 applicants with the criteria that none of the New Work, Long Haul or R+D applicants had received a Wavemaker grant in
the past five years. Projects were selected for conceptual rigor and relevance to the local cultural, geographic, and socio-economic context, impact on the local community, and the accessibility of the resulting project to the public. MEET THE 2024 WAVEMAKERS:
The 2024 WaveMakers are: New Work / Projects: Iman Clark, Amy Gelb, Jillian Mayer, and Nadia Wolff; Long-Haul Projects: Dejha Carrington, Yanira Collado, Margo Hannah, Suanay Hernandez, and Lee Pivnik; Research & Development + Implementation: Akia Dorsainvil and Christina Pettersson.
NEW WORK/PROJECTS – $6,000
Iman Clark – Behind the TEASE
Behind the TEASE highlights the lives of two Miami burlesque artists through performance, film and photography. Those witnessing this project will be lured into a journey that extends beyond the glitz and glamor of the stage and into the rawness of what goes into being a tantalizing entertainer.
Amy Gelb – Stitched With You
Stitched With You is a feminist textile photo series that documents female elders, capturing their perspectives about aging and society’s take on invisibility at Collective 62 and other Miami Art Centers. The act of stitching serves as a metaphorical bridge, connecting generations and cultures while symbolizing the passage of time. Through workshops and storytelling, I’ll invite participants to engage in dialogues that transcend temporal and spatial boundaries, fostering empathy and understanding across diverse backgrounds. At its core, Stitched With You employs the act of stitching as a metaphorical conduit.
Jillian Mayer – SCREENERS – energy producing series of sculptures for the public using solar technology
SCREENERS are a new body of work by Mayer. These multimedia sculptures are crafted from custom metalwork and artisanal glass. SCREENERS serve as aesthetic focal points and will display video projects while simultaneously functioning as energy generators, illuminating themselves and other devices with sustainable electricity. This project marries sculptures with utility, embodying the benefits of creative solar energy harvesting while fostering interactive engagement.
Nadia Wolff – kin
“kin” is intended to be a ceremony of release and offering to the ocean honoring the weight of the Atlantic coastline as a site of hope, grief, and dreaming for Afro-diasporic queer subjects. In staging the intimate gesture of hair braiding– an act which normally occurs in the interior– in nature, “kin” is a transgression of public space which encourages its audience to question the boundaries of intimate queer expression. Inspired by the garments of Egungun masquerade, the spectacularity of Carnaval costume, and Haitian drapo, the scale of the garment isolates braider and model from the other activations occurring simultaneously outside of the protective perimeter of the “salon cape.” While braiding occurs, performers activate the beach around the perimeter of the garment, as the rising tide draws the garment’s hem into the waves.
LONG-HAUL PROJECTS – $6,000
Dejha Carrington – Commissioner as Social Practice
A creative guide for imagining new models to collect art and support artists in community. A hard copy and interactive guide that documents, illustrates, and open-sources the learnings and successes of Commissioner’s community-driven model. This is Carrington’s second Wavemaker grant, their first, awarded in 2017 helped launch Commissioner.
Yanira Collado – Zafa, preserving the oral tradition
Zafa, Preserving the oral tradition, is a performance and video site-specific installation work, utilizing an ethnographic approach in documenting research through audio field recordings and individual interviews in different geographic locations in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island of Quisqueya-Ayiti is an island affluent in religious, spiritual, folkloric traditions as well as supernatural beliefs. This project focuses specifically on recording and preserving personal accounts with many of the island’s mythical beings. These traditions make up cultural narratives that are deeply woven into the fabric of everyday life and are original accounts that may be lost or forgotten if not properly preserved directly from those who practice and maintain these legacies.
Margo Hannah – Between Earth and the Sun
Between the Earth and the Sun is an experimental documentary that intimately explores the collective memories and inner worlds of Black men, with a specific focus on those raised in Miami. Using a non-linear narrative approach, the film delves into everyday life, dreams, memories, and
existential inquiries. It functions as a collective stream of consciousness, unveiling the diverse experiences and shared symbols that shape the contemporary identity of Black men. Through in-depth interviews, including dream exploration, Between the Earth and the Sun aims to function as an archive, capturing and preserving the personal narratives and cultural nuances of its participants. These narratives not only provide insight into individual journeys but also serve as a reflection of broader societal contexts and historical legacies.
Suanay Hernandez – UndrBelly
UndrBelly is a magazine focused on celebrating Miami’s vibrant food culture through community events and multimedia projects that aims to create
events that bring the local community together, celebrating the rich culinary traditions of Miami. Our video content and photography projects will highlight the essence of Miami’s diverse food scene showcasing local culinary stories, generational recipes, and unique food-related art, supporting local creatives and promoting cultural preservation. Events will foster a sense of community, encouraging locals to engage with and appreciate the diverse flavors and culinary heritage that make Miami unique. Through compelling visual storytelling and engaging community activities, UndrBelly strives to preserve and elevate Miami’s authentic food culture.
Lee Pivnik – The Living Room: A Symbiotic Home
The Living Room reimagines the home as a site of climate care and environmental repair as he reconstructs a South Beach studio apartment into a sprawling aquaponics sculpture to experiment with how regenerative design can function without direct land access. Using water impacted by nutrient runoff in the greater Everglades watershed, the aquaponics system is being designed to filter and clean water, grow food for the home, and evolve into a natureculture learning center, a domestic-scaled institution, where dwelling becomes an opportunity to “live our climate politics” by reshaping our relationships to water, power, and food production.
RESEARCH + DEVELOPMENT / IMPLEMENTATION
Akia Dorsainvil – Orishas of Miami: Namesake Origins and Finding Our Offerings | Research & Development – $2,000
Orishas of Miami: Finding Our Offerings is a project that seeks to find the true meaning of our cities’ names on a spiritual level. As Queer folks, we choose our names and as people of color, we have often had to leave our rightful names behind. In that same vein, we have had to live covertly and suppress our ancestral spiritualities. In this project, we will be excavating the characteristics of Opa Locka, Little Haiti, Liberty City, and Miami Beach. The city has recognized the connection between the communities’ spiritual livelihood and its advancement.
Christina Pettersson – The Abortifacient Garden | Research & Development – $4,000
Awarded second phase of R&D Grant: Throughout human history, writers in many parts of the world have described abortifacients – “that which will cause a miscarriage”, any substance that induces abortion. Christina Pettersson will
grow an artist-led ‘garden’ devoted to the history of botanical abortifacients, focused on our specific region and local population. This will be a widely sourced local community based project, seeking naturalists, gardeners, healers, scientists, historians, etc. who study plant and human histories.
