Threewalls, a Black-led non-profit organization providing support and visibility for ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American) contemporary visual artists in Chicago, today announced the 2020 recipients of the RaD Lab+Outside the Walls fellowship. Awarding grants of $32,000 for 8 total projects, nine fellows will imagine alternative ways towards racial equity through the lens of radical
imagination and racial justice. Dedicated to ALAANA artists who are working at the intersection of art, community and justice and doing so to build a racially just society, the fellowship is generously supported by the Surdna Foundation, who awarded Threewalls $1.2 million in 2019 to expand the
organization’s racial justice work.
Program fellows will spend a year researching, developing and testing an idea that addresses a racial justice issue pertinent to their neighborhood community. 2020 Fellows JennaAnast, IreashiaBennett, AquilCharlton, SafiyaEsheGyasi& ChinezeMogbo, FeliciaHolman, SalvadorJimenez-Flores, Youree Kimand ChandraChristmas-Rousewill address a wide range of racial justice issues, including dismantling weaponized media, food apartheid, environmental and educational racism, segregation, ableism, abolition, decriminalization of mentally disabled People of Color and disinvestment from Black communities. Each project will engage community members based in Chicago neighborhoods, including Bronzeville, Bucktown, Little Village, North Kenwood, Pilsen, South Shore, Uptown and Washington Park. Project summaries and artist bios are available here.
“The artists and creatives we have awarded represent critical and imaginative thinking necessary to create a racially just Chicago, and by extension a racially just world,” said Threewalls Executive Director JeffreenM.Hayes. “Our organization has radically reimagined what it means to truly support ALAANA artists, with funding going towards not just their projects but also their needs as individuals.
Additionally, recognizing that many of our artists are part of communities in which the coronavirus has had a disproportionate impact, we increased the award amount to $32,000.”
Fellows are offered technical and creative assistance throughout the program, including financial and digital coaching sessions, creative counseling and accessibility workshops. Threewalls serves as a thought partner and engages the fellows by offering curatorial and administrative support.
“This year’s RaD Lab+Outside the Walls fellows demonstrate the power of artists to challenge the status quo and reimagine a more just world in which everyone can thrive,” said RobertSmithIII, program officer of the Surdna Foundation’s Thriving Cultures program. “As communities across the nation work together to dismantle anti-black racism, we are proud to partner with Threewalls to support this powerful cohort of artists to work within their communities to use their collective experience, strategies, and creativity to realize a racially just Chicago.”
The fellowship takes place sequentially over two years, with fellows developing their projects in RaD Lab during the first year and Outside the Walls in the second year. Once completed, fellows will receive an additional $32,000 and their research projects will be presented as installations and interventions in their neighborhood.
“We deeply appreciated all who applied for this fellowship, reflecting the expansive and distinctly creative force of ALAANA communities in Chicago,” said Threewalls Director of Programs Barakadé Soleil. “The 2020 cohort affirms complexities of our culture that cannot go unnoticed; dynamic intersections of disability, queerness, Black feminism, migration and healing that shape how they will collectively reimagine – within and across this city’s neighborhoods – a more equitable future.”
Fellows were selected through an open call process and reviewed by an external panel of individuals who are actively involved in artistic work, who identify as members of an ALAANA community and the majority of whom are Chicago-based. 2020 panelists were Addis Aliyu, Justin Cooper, Chandra Méndez- Ortiz and Nikki Patin.
