100 Hives
By: Circle of Bees Inc.: Chessie Cooley-Rieders, Christian Daena Coulon and others
Amount granted: $1,500
Location: Davis, CA
Website: Circle of Bees
Melding artistic, scientific, and educational principles, 100 Hives will build art adorned beehives and publicly install them throughout Davis. Anticipated mediums include paint, wood, ceramic, metal sculpture, and electronic media. The hives will sit in public view atop stores and in trees to provide refuge for bee swarms.
The American Riad
By: Ghana ThinkTank and Oakland Avenue Artist Coalition
Amount granted: $7,000
Location: Detroit, MI
Website: The American Riad
A coalition of local and international organizations will engage residents of Detroit’s North End in a series of interactive art installations designed to re-build a corner in the North End neighborhood of Detroit using Islamic art. The American Riad will contain intricately cut aluminum sculptures that form a Moroccan-style Riad in a courtyard and will be used as a central gathering spot for locals to hold events.
Art installations on LUNKULU island
By: Lunkulu Collective and Samson ‘Xenson’ Ssenkaaba
Amount granted: $2,000
Location: Lunkulu Island, Mukono/Buikwe, Uganda
In August 2018, the annual Bayimba International Festival will be held on Lunkulu Island, a leafy island at the shores of Lake Victoria. This project will create a variety of creative and ecologically sensitive art installations using ideas and objects from the surrounding communities. Some of the art installations will reside in on the island after the festival and be accessible to the public.
Belmont Avenue Yard by play:groundNYC
By: play:groundNYC
Amount granted: $5,000
Location: The Bronx, New York, NY
Website: play:groundNYC
Built for children, by children, Belmont Ave Yard will be an experiential interactive play sculpture and program series sited on Belmont Avenue in the Bronx. It will be stewarded by artists, the local community board, and the non-profit organization play:groundNYC for 6 months, after which it will be gifted to the community.
Communitism vol. III: Europe was taken by a Bull
By: Communiteam
Amount granted: $9,000
Location: Athens, Greece
In a formerly abandoned, 1938 neoclassical building in the center of Athens, theoreticians and practitioners of the commons will work with local creative groups to create artworks that juxtapose a highly traditional Greek neoclassical style with contemporary interventions that are far from familiar. The artworks will respond to and interact with the building itself, and once completed the space will be opened up for a week-long free public event filled with music and video projections.
Community Speaks
By: Circus Zambia
Amount granted: $5,000
Location: Chibolya, Lusaka, Zambia
Website: Circus Zambia
Eight local artists with disciplines in photography, sculpture, circus, dance, painting and music will be paired with a family in Chibolya. Chibolya is often identified as the most dangerous place in Lusaka as it is Infamous for drug abuse and crime. The mission of Community Speaks is to bring change to Chibolya and show that people from Chibolya are just like anyone else. The artists will go ‘in residence’ with the families, learning about their daily lives, struggles and joys; they will explore what they have in common and then create a collaborative art piece that represents this. The pieces will then be brought together to create an immersive art experience in Chibolya.
community waste recycling pp40
By: Jumoke Olowookere
Amount granted: $3,000
Location: Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria
Community waste recycling pp40 will give improve the aesthetics of local public primary schools through arts and crafts projects utilizing recycled materials. The project will not only beautify the schools’ walls, it will also create playgrounds with tire swings, climbable pyramids, and other fun activity structures; and the schools’ pupils will be directly involved in the creation and artistic elements of the beautification projects.
The Dung Beetle – An Environmental Education Art Project
By: The Dung Beetle Project
Amount granted: $5,000
Location: Johannesburg and the Tankwa Karoo Desert, South Africa
The Dung Beetle will be an interactive art project housing a “plasma cracker” which will turn plastic trash into biodiesel. On-site waste plastic will be used to create fuel to power sound, lights, and it will shoot 2-meter high flames into the air. Before touring around southern Africa, The Dung Beetle will be launched and debuted at Afrikaburn 2018.
Festival Quinto Sol
By: Xela Collective, Festival Quinto Sol
Amount granted: $7,000
Location: Quetzaltenango (aka Xela), Guatemala
Website: Xela Collective
In April, Festival Quinto Sol (FQS) will be a month-long art festival based on the current cycle of the Mayan Cosmovision. New and established artists will interpret, express and apply the ideas of Quinto Sol during the dozen plus events to be created by the community, for the community.
Giant Puppets at HIFA
By: Manuel Bagorro and Booker Sipeyiye
Amount granted: $5,000
Location: Harare, Zimbabwe
Website: HIFA
A set of giant performance puppets will be created in collaboration between the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) and the public. Participants will learn how to build, wear, and move in a giant puppet, and then the puppets will be a part of the Street Carnival and children’s activity area at the HIFA Festival in May.
Heal Her
By: Heal Her (Lena Chen & Annique Delphine)
Amount granted: $6,000
Location: Berlin, Germany(main construction site), with accompanying events in Mexico City and Los Angeles
Website: Heal Her
Heal Her will be a collective action, installation, and participatory art platform for queer and people of color survivors of sexual/gender-based violence. Talking circles will be organized and facilitated in collaboration with local artists, healers, therapists, social workers, and community organizations to create spaces and rituals for collective healing. Offerings, flowers, and text from the talking circles will be become part of a brick wall art installation and displayed on the Heal Her website.
inside–>OUT
By: Art-Share with Kate Marshall
Amount granted: $6,000
Location: Wheeling, WV
Website: HOH Share
inside—>OUT will be an interactive, collaborative project between the homeless, mentally ill, and local artists. inside—>OUT will use multi-media art to give voice, validity and visual witness to the human experience of exclusion. The final installation will be accessible for free to the public in Fall 2018.
LUNA Fête Artist Training
By: Arts Council New Orleans
Amount granted: $10,000
Location: New Orleans, LA
Website: LUNA Fête
The Arts Council New Orleans will train local and regional train artists to develop and premiere new light-based artworks for LUNA Fête 2018, New Orleans Tricentennial Celebration of light, art, and technology. The training will take place throughout the spring and summer and may include artists working with video-mapping technologies, digital sculptures, interactive installations, and temporary light-based public art.
MÚCARO for Puerto Rico
By: El NiNo & MÚCARO’s Parliament Art Crew
Amount granted: $7,000
Location: Puerto Rico
Website: MÚCARO for Puerto Rico
A wise, woody owl with enchanting eyes will return to its homeland to provide healing and inspiration after Hurricane Maria. It will be filled with a collection of books, making it into a magical library which will be used as a classroom to educate visitors on subjects such as sustainability.
Myco-Rise: An Edible Mycology Sculptures Experiment
By: Brian Soliwoda, Salt Tree Art
Amount granted: $2,000
Location: Queens, New York, NY
Website: Myco-Rise: An Edible Mycology Sculptures Experiment
Myco-Rise will be an experimental sculptural installation that explores the role of art in science-based agricultural experimentation. Four sculptures, each producing edible mushrooms, will be created in a community garden space using a traditional totem method of layering hardwood disks with inoculated mushroom spawn compounds. The totems will be constructed as public events that introduce participants to edible mushroom cultivation.
Oxford Art-Go
By: Melanie Munns
Amount granted: $3,000
Location: Oxford, MS
Website: Oxford Arts
Oxford Art-Go will be an interactive program encouraging community members and tourists to visit, see, and connect with physical spaces in a new way. The program will take traditional landmarks, which artists overlay with a combination of digital and physical art, and transform them so that the audience will discover art like a scavenger hunt and enjoy changes to traditional scenery. The overlays/images will be visible through an app in participants’ phones and appear on historical landmarks. The app will become a living gallery with a curated exhibit of “installations” connected to the environment.
Penelopeacock
By: The Colossal Collective
Amount granted: $5,000
Location: Boise, ID
Website: The Colossal Collective
The Colossal Collective will construct a giant peacock puppet whose tail doubles as an interactive sound and light show. Participants will interact with the massive peacock by petting, feeding, or perhaps challenging it to a staring contest or dance-off. The Colossal Collective will also design and engineer an improved puppet gantry from which they will hang their collection of large-scale puppets.
SteamPunk Maker Space Interactive Activity Room
By: Art of Recycle
Amount granted: $5,000
Location: Ephrata, PA
Website: Art of Recycle
The STEAM Activity Center will be a permanent art installation environment providing free job skills trainings for special needs students, educational workshops, confidence building art skills workshops, and an inspirational environment to jump start imaginations. The Art of Recycle community art center currently has an under-the-sea themed room for 3-13 year olds, and this new room will be geared towards teens and adults and have a steampunk theme.
Steamroller Print Project
By: Rachel Singel
Amount granted: $1,500
Location: Louisville, KY
Students, local artists, non-profit organization leaders, and community members will learn about printmaking in a big way by carving giant printmaking plates, inking them up, and rolling over them with an industrial steamroller. The mission of the Steamroller Print Project will be to promote traditional and non-traditional printmaking, encourage collaboration, and further the professional growth of the arts in the Louisville community through activities and exhibitions.
The Storytelling Machine
By: Molly Allis
Amount granted: $1,500
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Website: Molly Allis
This large, interactive automata sculpture will function as an analog toy theater, activated through a series of hand-cranks. Using primarily recycled materials and found objects, it will activate kinetic visual and sound elements, creating a series of mini-stories or comic strips, through several hand-cranked automata mechanisms. When complete, it will be installed in a public library.
Syunik Marz
By: Luís Carvalho, RAIZVANGUARDA
Amount granted: $3,500
Location: Tatev, Syunik Region, Armenia
Website: RAIZVANGUARDA
In a rural area of Armenia where there is no running water, shops or services, Syunik Marz will create a community art program using three methods: creative arts, community theatre, and participatory architecture. The program will culminate with an art exhibition, community performance, and design of an art centre.