In the wake of a brutal and brutalizing year of violence, pandemic, and racial injustice, how can the arts and artists invoke racial solidarities and foster collective acts of joy, grief, and resistance?
On July 7, 2021, this panel convened four leading Twin Cities-based artists and past recipients of the Joyce Foundation’s annual Joyce Awards: Ananya Chatterjea (2016 Joyce Awards), Marlina Gonzalez (2012 Joyce Awards), Seitu Ken Jones (2013 Joyce Awards), and Bryan Thao Worra (2019 Joyce Awards), discuss how the arts can inspire new and urgent conversations around racial solidarity and cross-community dialogue and healing. The discussion was moderated by Sarah Bellamy, Artistic Director for Penumbra Theatre Company.
This event was presented in partnership with The Jerome Foundation.
About the Jerome Foundation
The Jerome Foundation was founded in 1964 by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972). In honoring his legacy, it awards multi-year grants to vocational artists in all disciplines in Minnesota and New York City at early stages in their careers and to those nonprofit arts organizations that serve, develop and/ or present such artists (whether through publication, exhibition, performance or screening). The Foundation centers its grantmaking and its own practice in three core values of humility, innovation/risk, and diversity.
About the Joyce Awards
The Joyce Awards is the only regional program dedicated to supporting artists of color in major Great Lakes cities. Since its inception in 2003, the competition has awarded more than $3.7 million to commission 72 new works and collaborations between emerging and mid-career artists and cultural organizations in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Each award of $75,000 supports an artist in the creation and production of a new work and provides the commissioning organization with the resources needed to engage potential audiences, new partners, and their surrounding communities at large. To learn more about the Joyce Awards and see a list of past winners, click here.
About The Joyce Foundation
Joyce is a nonpartisan, private foundation that invests in evidence-informed public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.