Forecast Announces 2019 Early- and Mid-Career Grant Recipients

Thirteen artists are recipients of Forecast’s 2019 early- and mid-career grants. A total of $86,000 will support independent projects, leadership and professional development, risk-taking, multidisciplinary approaches, and collaborative problem solving in the field of public art.

“We believe deeply in supporting individual artists who are committed to transforming our communities through public art,” said executive director Theresa Sweetland. “We know from more than 30 years of experience that these grants have a significant impact on both artists and the places they serve.”

This year’s recipients are:
Early-Career Project Grantees ($8,000 each)
Kazua Vang
Moira Villiard

Mid-Career Project Grantees ($10,000 each)
Todd Boss
Pete Driessen
Aaron Dysart
Karen Savage-Blue
Bryan Thao Worra

Early-Career Research + Development Grantees ($2,500 each)
Daniel McCarthy Clifford
Kaysone Syonesa
Maria Cristina Tavera
Wisdom Young

Mid-Career Professional Development Grantees ($5,000 each)
Pramila Vasudevan
Dyani White Hawk

To increase the quantity and diversity of mid-career grantees, Forecast turned its previous single $50,000 mid-career grant into five grants of $10,000 each for public artists to create a new, publicly accessible, temporary or permanent artwork anywhere in the state of Minnesota. “We believe this change will have a really positive influence on the field this year and in the years to come,” said Sweetland.

Forecast seeks to fund a diverse group of artists working in a range of public art practices and media, placing particular emphasis on supporting and amplifying the artistic work of artists of color, female artists, LGBTQ artists, immigrant artists, artists from rural communities, as well as non-traditional public artists.

An independent panel selected the 2019 grantees. The panelists were: Mark Steel Wool Salinas, director of Arts & Culture for Carson City, NV, and board member of the Nevada Arts Council; Joseph Allen, photographer and director of the Gizhiigin Arts Incubator in Mahnomen, MN, on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation; Adrienne Doyle, tactical urbanism lead + development at Juxtaposition Arts in Minneapolis, MN; and Tori Hong, visual artist in Minneapolis, MN.

2019 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)

Kazua Vang
Hmong Ephemeras
Vang will create a projected installation of a series of experimental short films entitled Hmong Ephemeras, which focuses on the world of caregiving and the complex relationship between the caregivers and those given care.

Moira Villiard
Street Murals in Central Hillside
Villiard will partner with Zeitgeist to develop and implement four street murals / crosswalk designs reflecting ideas of place, culture, and identity as expressed by the surrounding communities in Duluth’s Central Hillside.

2019 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.

Todd Boss
MoVA: The Museum of Virtual Art
Boss will produce MoVA: The Museum of Virtual Art, a free app that, with curatorial assistance from local institutions, will turn the Minneapolis-St. Paul Green Line into a permanent augmented-reality museum of bigger-than-museum art. It will include world-class architecture, installations, digital art, environmental works, projections, and poetry. Upon completion, audiences are invited to download this GPS-based app, take a seat, and their smartphone will become a window onto a rotating schedule of exhibits viewable from all angles as the train moves “past.”

Pete Driessen
Northern Pacific Roundhouse Sculpture
Driessen will create an abstract, monumental and participatory Roundhouse sculpture echoing the former 1875 rail architecture at the historic Northern Pacific Rail Yard site in Brainerd, MN. With 54 exterior doors and interior vortex platform, the Roundhouse installation will reflect upon ideas of transport history, community empowerment, and rural vacancy. An interactive workshop, critical dialogue, exhibition and opening will be held onsite within former NP Boiler Shop.

Aaron Dysart
Process
Dysart will create Process, a reactive light installation outside Fulton Brewery’s taproom. Process will use data from a University of Minnesota experiment that biologically creates and captures hydrogen and methane while it cleans the wastewater that is produced during the brewing process.

Karen Savage-Blue
Glossy Prospective
Savage-Blue will create a large exterior mural on the Early Childhood building. The building is owned by the Fond du Lac reservation. Glossy Prospective will be a learning tool for occupants, visitors, instructors and the community.

Bryan Thao Worra
Laomagination 2019: A Little Room for Tomorrows
Thao Worra will create an interactive Lao American speculative poetry exhibit in North Minneapolis. Laomagination 2019: A Little Room for Tomorrows will reflect on 20 years of the Lao imagination in diaspora across intercultural lines, addressing the Secret War for Laos, its Minnesotan roots and legacy, and our prospective shared futures.

2019 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)

Maria Cristina Tavera
Express Vehicle Project
Tavera’s Express Vehicle concept provides a space in South Minneapolis for visual art, performance and film, with a focus on artists of color from the community. Tavera will research building a mini-gallery from a repurposed train freight car or 40-foot shipping containers with large windows, with the surrounding plot serving as a creative space. When closed to the public, the art would be visible from the street.

Kaysone Syonesa
“In the Land of 10,000 Stories” research and development
Syonesa will conduct research and development for a free presentation of an original family-friendly play exploring refugee identity in Minnesota. Through traditional Lao storytelling, and shadow puppetry, the theatrical performance will occur in Minneapolis in a culturally appropriate space during the 45th anniversary of the Lao diaspora.

Daniel McCarthy Clifford
Protest and Punishment: Political Prisoners of Minnesota
McCarthy Clifford will perform archival research and community involvement and develop a series of leaflets highlighting an urgent history of activism and dissent in Minnesota. A roundtable workshop with local activists, press, historians, and union workers will inform the project through diverse perspectives, supplementing historical research into the stories of Minnesotan farmers, laborers, journalists, and politicians sentenced to federal prison for protesting during the first World War.

Wisdom Young
Shaking Shackles & Colonizers: The door to a realm of healing
As an African American woman in Minnesota, born in Natchez, Mississippi, Wisdom Young is filled with questions about identity, home and healing. A disconnection from source exists that leaves a feeling of longing, otherness and bitterness for Wisdom, whose DNA carries trauma for generations and across oceans. The grant will enable travel across that ocean to Ghana and Senegal to create an art work for North Minneapolis that addresses home and healing in regard to origination, connection and culture.

2019 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)

Dyani White Hawk
Mayer of Munich to Franklin Avenue
White Hawk will attend a residency opportunity at the Franz Mayer of Munich studios in Munich, Germany. The residency provides artists the ability to experiment and learn about the materials and processes of public art mosaic and glass work. In partnership with Mayer of Munich and Seward Redesign, White Hawk will utilize this opportunity to design a public artwork to be installed at the Five Square building on Franklin Avenue.

Pramila Vasudevan
Residency at the Weisman Art Museum
Vasudevan is a choreographer and interdisciplinary artist who will participate in a Weisman Art Museum residency to grow as a public artist. Vasudevan’s goal is to move beyond traditional event-based mechanisms that permeate the world of dance. Vasudevan intends to further their career as a public artist by taking risks, such as opening up the creative process to the public as ongoing participants in the generation of the work.