The Peale, Baltimore’s Community Museum, has announced the winners of the 2024 Grit Fund Awards. This cycle, Grit Fund received 74 eligible applications, amounting to $669,930 in funding requests. The total budget for this cycle was $60,000. With this, Grit Fund’s Jury Panel selected 7 innovative, community-based arts projects to support this year. Project awards range from $10,000 to $5000. In total, $60,000 has been awarded to creative visionaries and culture keepers with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

“Baltimore’s creative community constantly inspires. This year’s grant recipients include projects that create intentional space for rest and release, provide a collaborative platform for local film makers, and that remind residents of Baltimore City’s Korean history. Baltimore creatives use their practice to raise awareness of social issues and uplift the communities they live in,” says Krista D. Green, Program Officer of Grit Fund at The Peale, “People across the city will have the chance to see the exhibitions, watch performances, and participate in the amazing activities produced by these projects.”

Since 2015, Baltimore’s artists have found support for their projects through Grit Fund. Ranging from out-of-school time programs that connect our youth to STEAM opportunities, and art- meetsjournalism projects that communicate hidden stories of Black Baltimore, to community festivals
that recapture and remind us of the strength of our city’s diversity, Grit Fund has been a dynamic, accessible, and much-needed funding source in Baltimore City.

The 2025 Grit Fund Award recipients are:

$10,000
Did you know Baltimore has a Koreatown? Conserving Baltimore’s First Koreatown
Lead Artist – Phaan Howng
An installation of historical markers in the Charles North neighborhood and part of Station North Arts & Entertainment District to designate it as an ‘unofficial” Koreatown. The Korean community began to form in the 1960’s reaching its height in the 1990’s. During its peak, the neighborhood consisted of several Korean-owned businesses that ranged from restaurants, a supermarket, to accounting firms, doctors’ offices, and even social service centers. The project hopes that by creating historic markers, it will support an effort to push for the area preservation and advocate for an official neighborhood designation from the city.

 

$10,000
Soft Gather, Quiet Flame
Lead Artist – Aliana Grace Bailey
Founded in 2023, Soft Gather™ is an artistic practice and series of healing spaces utilizing fiber arts and color therapy designed for Black women and gender-expansive communities. It includes various initiatives and installations that will evolve, travel, and adapt to community needs. People gather and build community through conversation, rest, play, and release. Soft Gather, Quiet Flame consists of monthly intimate gatherings that will provide a consistent, intentional space for participants to explore their quiet power, build meaningful connections, and engage with fiber arts in a setting that honors and celebrates introversion.

 

$10,000
twurl
Lead Artist – Abdu Ali
twurl will is a publication project operating as a sociocultural journal that focuses on publishing contemporary literary text, scholarly writings and photographic works by Black gay men, transmen and butch lesbians. twurl will engage with writers, artists, cultural workers, and academics within the global African diaspora. twurl will be the beginning of a life publication project that I plan to work on for many years to come. twurl will investigate and illustrate the contemporary Black gay dilemma, Black gay collective desires and foster as a space for Black gay radical imagining. The Grit Fund will help support in producing the inaugural issue.

 

$10,000
Springboard: Film – A Collaborative Platform for Baltimore Filmmakers
Lead Artist – Zachary Michel
Springboard: Film is a public-facing, collaborative initiative designed to nurture, elevate, and sustain a vibrant local filmmaking community in Baltimore. This project provides an essential platform for new and emerging local filmmakers to connect with one another, develop new work, and engage with audiences and industry professionals. By facilitating opportunities for creative exchange, mentorship, and public exhibition, Springboard: Film directly addresses the infrastructural gaps in Baltimore’s independent film scene and fosters a resilient ecosystem that supports risk-taking, cultural integrity, and long-term resonance.

 

$7500
Islam & Print
Lead Artist – Safiyah Cheatam
Islam & Print (I&P) is a community print fellowship created by Dan Talib Latif Flounders and Safiyah Cheatam. I&P aims to champion diverse Muslim experiences and strengthen career readiness by building a network of regional, emerging visual artists of all mediums through a five-month screen printing fellowship. I&P strives to prioritize relationship building in cohorts of three to co-work, critique, and produce a collection of print editions that will culminate in a group exhibition of the cohort’s work.

 

$7500
Move Move Collaborative’s First Decade Celebration
Lead Artist – Peter Redgrave
Move Move Collaborative is a project that seeks to nourish the Baltimore performance community by hosting skill shares, hosting movement artists from out of town, and sustaining an ensemble practice. The First Decade Celebration: the spring intensive with added performances of contributors, our ongoing open studio, and public facing curated movement classes will form an epic celebration of ten years of organizing.

 

$5000
Mind Kontrol University – Webseries Screening
Lead Artist – Starseed Studios
MKU (Mind Kontrol University) is an original sci-fi psychological thriller web series produced under Starseed Studios, a newly formed Baltimore based art collective. This project is deeply collaborative and grounded in community by bringing together a team of local working actors, screenwriters, graphic designers, composers, cinematographers, casting directors, art directors, producers, and wardrobe stylists.