Announcing Forecast’s 2024 Early- and Mid-Career Grant Recipients

We are incredibly proud of the talented group of artists selected to receive Forecast grant funding in 2024. Seventeen artists are recipients of Forecast’s 2024 early- and mid-career grants. A total of $86,000 will support thirteen independent projects, leadership and professional development, risk-taking, multidisciplinary approaches, and collaborative problem-solving in the field of public art.

Public artists help us connect with each other and understand our shared world. Our grant program gives public artists time and space to develop research and locally connected projects. Each year we seek to fund a diverse group of artists working in all career stages and in a range of public art practices and media. We emphasize supporting and amplifying the artistic work of BIPOC and Native artists, LGBTQIA+ artists, artists from rural communities, artists with disabilities, and other groups that are traditionally excluded. These have long been the only public art grants in the country that fund self-initiated artist projects rather than asking artists to answer a call.

This year’s grant recipients are planning projects to uplift their communities, stimulate intergenerational dialogue, celebrate language, honor ancestry, facilitate peace and healing, and more, through creative methods and materials including textiles, storytelling, games, film, puppetry, sculpture, woodworking, ceramics, street art, and murals.

The 2024 recipients are:

Mid-Career Project ($10,000 each)

Tahiel Jimenez Medina
Tara Fahey and Sofia Padilla (team)
Melvin Giles, Gita Ghei, and Anura Si-Asar (team)
Aratti
Thomasina TopBear

Early-Career Project ($8,000 each)

Wóokiye Wíŋ
Hibaaq Ibrahim

Mid-Career Professional Development ($5,000 each)

Angela Two Stars
Ka Oskar Ly

Early-Career Research + Development ($2,500 each)

Z Kaplan
Olu Famule
M Jamison with Yonci Jameson (team)
LIPING VONG

It is with great pleasure that we congratulate the artists selected to receive a total of $86,000 in 2024 Forecast grants:

“Forecast’s 2024 grantees demonstrate that public art and artists are essential to our community, connecting us to our shared land and ancestries, facilitating peace and healing, creating community resources, and realizing our collective future. We work diligently to increase accessibility for these grants, to uplift artists and culture bearers who represent our entire community,” says Yarlyn Rosario, Forecast Project Manager. “Cultivating an equitable future hinges on embracing boundless imagination, and we are inspired by the visionary applications we received from across Minnesota and the Native Nations that share the same geography. We look forward to following this year’s grantees as they build their practices and reimagine what public art can do.”

We are thrilled for our grantees, and cannot wait to see what they accomplish this year!

It is our value that our applicants, panelists, and grantees reflect the racial, cultural, gender, artistic, physical ability, and geographic diversity of Minnesota and the 11 Native Nations that share the same geography, and the stories and perspectives of the artists and communities we serve.

2024 Mid-Career Project Grantees

Supports the creation of a new, publicly accessible, temporary or permanent artwork anywhere in the state of Minnesota by a Minnesota-based mid-career public artist (made possible by funding from McKnight Foundation)

Tahiel Jimenez Medina  |  @miel.tahiel
Of Migrant Mothers
Of Migrant Mothers is a unique community storytelling and filmmaking project that invites three first generation immigrant mothers in collaboration with Tahiel Jimenez Medina to share their stories and transform them into short experimental narrative films. The three films will be exhibited in a public gallery space, online for the virtual public, and collectively celebrated during a closing event for the storytellers in the project.
tahielfilms.com

Tara Fahey and Sofia Padilla (team)
Ritual Lantern Procession on the Midtown Greenway
Tara and Sofia, with support from Heather Hinrichson, will build two (2) large bike lantern puppets in South Minneapolis at community hubs, inviting community members to make smaller lanterns at six (6) free public workshops, culminating in a community public ritual procession in late summer of 2024 on the Midtown Greenway.
tarafahey.com

Melvin Giles, Gita Ghei, and Anura Si-Asar (team)
Beacons of Hope
As a long-term BIPOC Rondo based artist, Melvin knows his community is strong, adaptive and beautiful. But it can be easy to forget sometimes in the face of how other people see their neighborhood and label it as “low-income” and “at risk.” Melvin’s team wants to create a prototype of a sculpture called “Beacons of Hope” and use the prototype as a touchstone for conversations about loss and love and healing and peace in his community.
Melvin Giles is an artist liaison for the Rice Street Visioning Study with Forecast and Ramsey County, and was a Forecast 2020 Messages of Hope Mini-Grant Recipient.

Aratti  |  @aratti.artworks
Builders of Cultural Wealth mural
The projects consists in designing and painting a mural themed after Latin-American cultural festivities. This mural is meant to be a gift and tribute to all teachers and community members around the east side who spend time and resources educating our youth on indigenous traditions that help kids mature their sense of identity and belonging into our communities. The wall will be designed with the feedback of students and community members alike.
Tomás Araya (Aratti) was a Forecast 2022 Mid-Career Project Grantee.
aratti-design.com

Thomasina TopBear  |  @tomierae
Traditional Connections
Traditional Connections is a celebration of street art on the East 7th Street Cultural Corridor of Saint Paul. It involves the activation of 5 different out- and indoor spaces where artists from all four directions and various backgrounds connect over graffiti style murals, gallery exhibits, movement performances and live art which are shared with the public. 2024 will be its fifth year – a space for intergenerational, intercultural, interracial artistic expression, community building and innovation.
Thomasina TopBear was a Forecast 2021 Mid-Career Project Grantee. and was on a Forecast 2022 Early-Career Project Grant team led by Zamara Cuyún.

2024 Early-Career Project Grantees

Supports the creation of a temporary or permanent public artwork anywhere in the state of Minnesota by an early-career Minnesota-based artist (made possible by funding from Jerome Foundation)

Wóokiye Wíŋ  |  @wookiye_win
Dakhódiapi Wahóȟpi (Dakota Language Nest)
Award-winning artist Katie Jo Bendickson ( Wóokiye wiŋ) will create Dakhódiapi wahóȟpi (Dakota language nest), an 8-foot by 10-foot mural. On a daily basis about 100 people including families, students, employees, community members and dignitaries will walk past the mural. In the past the first lady of the United States had visited this site as it is a top of the line childcare center where institutions and fellow associations come to visit and learn.
wookiyewin.com

Hibaaq Ibrahim  |  @moonjuiceart
Nature
Hibaaq aims to recreate the look and feel of nature through a 3D woodworking mural made primarily of reclaimed wood that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
moonjuicemurals.com

2024 Mid-Career Professional Development Grantees

Supports Minnesota-based mid-career artists seeking to expand or advance their careers in the field of public art, through a project idea or participation in career-enhancing activities (made possible by funding from McKnight Foundation)

Angela Two Stars  |  @angela2stars
Dakota Game Night: Reinvigorating Joy & Healing through the Dakota Language
Public artist, curator, and arts administrator, Angela Two Stars will research and explore interactive game design for youth and families as a means of offering safe space for families to learn and share the Dakota language.

Ka Oskar Ly  |  @kaonwards
Weaving in HMong
Ka will lead a research residency at the Hmong Museum (St. Paul) titled Weaving in HMong. This project aims to foster intergenerational participation and dialogue to preserve the collective memory of HMong cultural beliefs. It places particular emphasis on communal practices and ancestral knowledge as essential elements of well-being and sustainability, demonstrated in HMong hemp-making. Reigniting this practice also recognizes the significance of women and genderqueer labor, diverse experiences, and expansive viewpoints that inform broader HMong culture and philosophy. Ka envisions this research as a means to guide future practices, striking a delicate balance between cultural preservation, transformation, and future-making.
kaonwards.com

2024 Early-Career Research + Development Grantees

Supports early-career artists in public art-related research and development or with the planning phase of freely accessible public art installation or activity in Minnesota (made possible by funding from Jerome Foundation).

Z Kaplan  |  @zkceramics
Community in Clay: Supporting Marginalized Jewish Community Members through the Intersection of Art and Healing
Z Kaplan will expand an ongoing Jewish community art initiative that aims to honor ancestry and create recipes toward home-building in the complicated reality of living in diaspora. Kaplan will elevate the voices of marginalized Jewish community members through engaging in meaningful research and leading public art workshops that aim to deepen their ceramics practice and bring art and healing to their community through supporting others in finding grounding in diaspora
zkceramics.com

Olu Famulae  |  @kehfam
This Isn’t Working  A Media Project
Olu intends to use the grant to facilitate free local screenings of his film, “This Isn’t Working,” alongside five short films by other BIPOC local artists. This initiative will foster community engagement, promoting creative dialogue and local artists’ works. “This Isn’t Working” is a short docufiction illuminating the journeys of three local BIPOC artists as they transition into full-time artists, exploring the impact of their unique identities and surroundings on their creative processes.
kehindefamulae.com

M Jamison and Yonci Jameson (team)  |  @booboo3000000
10’s Talk – Black Trans Femmes in Twin Cities Music
10’s Talk is a community conversation centered on advocacy and access for Black Trans Femme artists in music.

LIPING VONG  | @lipingvong
Puppets: An Exploration of Dogs in Asian Folklores
Grant funding will support research of the stories and impact of dogs in various Asian folklores for the development of a new puppet show.