Kazua Melissa Vang

2019 Early-Career Project Grant | $8,000

Hmong Ephemera

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

Kazua Melissa Vang is a Hmong American storyteller using the mediums of photography, visual art, filmmaking and producing. She is based in Minnesota. Her current photography project is taking portraits of Hmong refrigerators and freezers titled, “F R I D G E S,” that was featured in the exhibit “Foodway” (Summer 2018) at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design; a curatorial project exhibit, “Thirty-Three Views” (2019) in east side Saint Paul; and at Second Shift Studio Space on Payne Avenue. Vang’s mixed-media artwork was published as a book art cover for the Saint Paul Almanac 2019, “Resistance and Resilience, Vol 12.” She co-founded the Asian Pacific Island American Minnesota Film Collective. Since 2014, she has worked with In Progress, an art nonprofit in North End Saint Paul, as a lead artist and mentor. Much of her work in association with Rice Street was through In Progress. She was a lead artist in the North End Initiative, where photographers and filmmakers gather stories, portraits and images of the neighborhood in an exhibit and presentation to the community

Forecast has been offering early-career artist grants supported by Jerome Foundation since 1989. In addition to funding, Forecast is dedicated to providing professional development and learning opportunities designed to assist emerging artists as they experiment/ hone their practices, and cultivate careers in the field. Forecast mid- and early-career grants are designed to support independent projects, leadership development, professional development, risk-taking, multidisciplinary approaches, and collaborative problem-solving in the field of public art.