The Velocity Fund, a local regranting organization, announces its 2025 cohort of grantees, who will receive $60,000 in project funding this year. Now in its seventh year of regranting, and its first year hosted by Asian Arts Initiative, the Velocity Fund will provide twelve artists and collectives $5,000 each to develop their new project proposals, which will reach publics in Philadelphia within a year.
Selected from over 200 applications, these twelve proposed projects exemplify a commitment to material change within their communities; a recognition of deeper craft and political histories in their practices; and an insistence on collective embodied rituals — through planting, traditional healing practices, and somatic workshops. These Velocity Fund grantees offer an expanded sense of the visual arts, comprising a teen-led exhibition, a collective tapestry, an animation film festival, cross-city mail art, abolitionist teach-ins, construction and maintenance of a community garden, and garment industry history made tangible again through film.
The 2025 cohort of Velocity Fund grantees were selected by a thoughtful panel who spoke repeatedly to the depth of practice, and breadth of vision of the applicants. The Velocity Fund looks forward to a year of artist-sown projects, realized collaboratively, amid a time of political turmoil and climate crisis.
The Velocity Fund will gather the grantees for an award ceremony in March 2025, and plans to host cohort-wide workshops later this year. The next application cycle will open in Fall 2025.
These twelve projects are among 88 supported by the Velocity Fund since its founding in 2018, and will total $420,000 of direct-to-artist funding provided, with generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
2025 Velocity Fund Grantees:
Âm Dương — Balance and Healing in Traditional Vietnamese Medicine — Chấn Đạt Phan, Chấn Tọn Phan, Megan Nguyễn, Yunhao Zhang
This 40-minute documentary journeys through Vietnam with two captivating practitioners of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine (TVM) as they share the philosophy and practice of this healing art. Speaking to Philadelphia’s diasporic Vietnamese community, many growing up distanced from our homeland’s cultural practices, it bridges past and present through thought-provoking interviews, vibrant electronic soundscapes, and lively animation. This film invites young Vietnamese in Philadelphia and beyond to reconnect with our homeland’s healing traditions in a fresh, immersive way.
Dead Dykes & Some Gay Men — Arleen Olshan
“Dead Dykes and Some Gay Men” is a celebration of the lives of Philadelphia (primarily) LGBTQA+ activists, artists, and everyday individuals, now deceased, who personally touched my life. I will be painting and drawing approximately 20–30 women and men, exhibiting their biographies, obituaries, and accomplishments. I will also lead artist talks that will speak to their contributions, as ancestors, to our LGBTQ+ history.
Eds and Meds (working title) — Laurie Robins, Evan Kassof
Eds and Meds (working title) is a photographic research project that will use text and image to document the diverse range of unionized jobs within the higher education and healthcare sector of Philadelphia. The project will be first exhibited in the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO building (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations).
Garlic Breath — Ro Adler
“Garlic Breath” is an experiment in land magic and community printmaking. Over the course of 7 months, a pop-up collective of 15–20 residents of Southwest Philly will harvest, plant and eat garlic together at community garden Farm 51. They will co-create planting and harvest rituals and make art together. Garlic will be the entry into shared artmaking about ancestral knowledge, climate resilience, and relationship to place.
“Not Safe” for Teens Art Initiative — Lorraine Ustaris, Rosie Smith, Magdalena Johnson, Clarissa Lanzas
“Not Safe” for Teens is a Philly-based art initiative for teens by teens. Our mission is to create safe spaces for teen artists to make and share art representative of their uncensored ideas, stories, dreams, and beliefs — including those that some deem “not safe” for youth to express or explore. Our first show opened this June at iMPeRFeCT Gallery. This grant funds our second, bolder exhibition closer to Center City and other events prompting the public to learn from teen art.
Social Fabric: Stitching Legacy — Richie Lopez
Social Fabric: Stitching Legacy is a community embroidery project created in response to the Semiquincentennial in Philadelphia, countering the founding fathers myth. Participants will stitch their hopes for the future, contributing to a large-scale tapestry representing diverse voices and legacies for the next 250 years. Through learning basic stitches and engaging in conversations, participants will connect with the city’s collective aspirations. The finished piece will be displayed publicly, inviting reflection and dialogue about the legacy we leave behind.
Like Flowers Blooming from a Deep Tower of Vines, We Rise with the Sun. — Tyler Kline
Community gardens in the heart of Kensington are helping to revitalize and transform the neighborhood. The Krimson Garden at Frankford and Tusculum is one such location. Rebooted and revamped in the Spring of 2024, the garden will continue its community transformation by extending the native species pollinator meadow and constructing a pavilion for community meeting, performance, and contemplation. The Velocity Fund would greatly make it possible for this plan to come to fruition.
Taking in the Tailors — Larnell Baldwin, Ty Burdenski, Quinha Faria, Aidan Un, Catching on Thieves
While helping master tailor Larnell Baldwin at his storefront in Philadelphia’s Fabric Row, an aspiring designer overhears stories from a disappearing generation of master tailors. Taking in the Tailors is a 16mm film record of the sounds, textures and stories of a skilled generation of designers and tailors who no longer live in a world with apprentices.
Penpals for Palestine Club (working title) — Michelle Harris
Penpals for Palestine Club is an exquisite corpse style mail art collaboration between the children of Jericho and the children of Philadelphia, facilitated by Philadelphia-based artists Michelle Anne Harris and Kim Altomare in collaboration with Jericho-based artist Yaqeen Yamani. Harris and Altomare will facilitate community workshops throughout Philadelphia to create handmade books and paper mail art that will be sent back and forth to Yamani for response at community events in Jericho.
Adorning Movement: Creating a visual language around museum access (working title) — Ray Lapinski, David Gerbstadt
Artists creating unique usable sculptural works to serve as mobility aids in museums and galleries.
Philadelphia Animation Festival — Amy Lee Ketchum
We intend to host a three-day film festival showcasing the creativity of the animation artists of Philadelphia. Programming will spotlight independent animation with both a regional and international focus. One event will focus specifically on collaborations and works from the Philadelphia area. There will be workshops for both adults and families, animation art exhibitions, and screenings of local and international animators.
Rhythm Knows No Cage — Rachel K. Godfrey
Rhythm Knows No Cage amplifies abolitionist voices in Philadelphia through public creative events exploring liberation, resilience, and collective storytelling. Using the theme of rhythm as a tool for connection, expression, and imagining how we “get free,” the series will include teach-ins on abolitionist principles, songwriting workshops, a somatic movement offering, and a final exhibition. Centering the work of abolitionists both within and beyond the confines of incarceration, this program harnesses rhythmic art forms to build community, solidarity, and collective bravery.