Newsletter

Rami George announces P(h)ew microgrants to 16 artists, Kukuli Velardi keynotes UPenn Humanities Forum

We are excited to share the generous micro grant project, The P(h)ew Microgrant, created by Rami George to pass along 10% of their recent Pew Fellowship award to queer and trans artists, writers, performers and musicians in the Philadelphia region. Congratulations, Rami, on this thoughtful and brilliant project! And congratulations to each of the 16 P(h)ew winners, including several with connections to Artblog: Corey Qureshi, Jordan Deal, Savan DePaul, and Suldano Abdiruhman! We love this project and are honored to announce it in our pages! Also in the news, we congratulate Kukuli Velarde and can't wait to hear her Keynote address Thursday at 5 PM for the University of Pennsylvania Forum on Migration.

NEWS – Rami George redistributes 10% of their Pew Fellowship Award through their P(h)ew micro-grants to 16 artists

An infographic announcing the P(h)ew Microgrant. On a stack of yellow squares with various scan textures and hand drawn marks reads: P(H)*EW MICROGRANT by Rami George. 15 $500 grants for emerging QTBIPOC artists in Philly". Designed with M Slater, @belsh_
P(h)ew Microgrant, by Rami George – 15 $500 grants for emerging QTBIPOC artists in Philly. Courtesy Rami George. Designed with M Slater (@belsh_)

From Rami George:

As part of my recent 2021 Pew Fellowship, I committed to redistributing 10% ($7,500) back to emerging QTBIPOC artists (queer and trans artists of color) in Philly. I was thinking about the grants and opportunities that helped me as an emerging artist, and was grateful to be in a position to create something from my award. I was so impressed with the pool of applications that it was hard to just pick 15—I ended up awarding 16 grants of $500 ($8,000). The artists selected work across visual art, writing, sound/music, performance, publishing, archiving, community engagement, and fashion. A big part of this project is to directly support emerging Philly artists, as well as hopefully give them a boost of recognition. My thanks to Artblog for helping share the news.

Names and links of artists (organized alphabetically by first name)

A square collage of the 16 recipients of the P(h)ew Microgrant. Each artist, organized alphabetically by first name, is represented by a single square image (four rows by four) depicting a part of their practice. The images range from illustration, painting, collage, installation, album covers, clothing, photography, infographics, and documentation of work in progress
Work by P(h)ew Microgrant recipients (top left to bottom right): Abataloa Bagua, Corey Qureshi, Genesis Pizarro, Gregory Parker, Jordan Deal, Kaltoum Alibrahimi, Lucy Liyou, Mastress, Miss Thing, Najee Gibson, Nia Hammond, Savan DePaul, Siddisse Negero, Suldano Abdiruhman, Sydney Rainer, Valerie Onifade

Follow Rami George @rami_george. And for more information on the P(h)ew microgrant awardees, see these announcements:

We were especially thrilled to see on this list, Corey Qureshi (Artblog contributor), Jordan Deal (recent Artblog Radio guest), Savan DePaul (whose work was included in Artblog contributor Logan Cryer‘s recent curation, reviewed for Artblog by Alex Smith), and Suldano Abdiruhman (whose work Samuel Brown reviewed for Artblog in 2019)!


EVENT – Wolf Humanities Forum on Migration features artist Kukuli Velardi as Keynote Speaker

(and Claes Gabriel image on its symposium poster!)

Colorful symmetrical painting with a center image of a stylized white two faced head surrounded by stylized Black faces and bodies in profile enclosed in black line suggesting a boat with stylized blue waves underneath it.
Claes Gabriel, “Boat People,” 2020, acrylic on canvas

Symposium | Migration: Points of Entry, Points of Departure
Fri, February 25, 2022
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM EST
Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Van Pelt Library
3420 Walnut St
6th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Free and open to the public. Register here for either in person or online

Migration: Points of Entry, Points of Departure
Humanities Symposium

Migrants—forced and voluntary, documented and undocumented, domestic and international, permanent and temporary—have transformed geo-political boundaries, nation states, cities, and civilizations throughout history. Our contemporary era is defined by unprecedented levels of global migration, with more people than ever living outside their place of birth. Migrants contend with new languages and cultural norms, racial and ethnic categorization, and discourses of citizenship that often cast them out as the “other.” These new contexts give rise to experiences of alienation and anxiety, loss and longing, hope and optimism. Through these experiences migrants transform the very places and cultures they come to inhabit—by laboring to establish cross-community ties and anchor themselves in new contexts. At our unique historical juncture, we will consider the past, present, and future of migration.

A photo shows a woman with black hair and wearing a black longsleeve t-shirt holding a crying baby with a toy caught in its mouth who seems to be wiggling to get out of her arms, and the background is a flat ochre color.
Photo courtesy of Kukuli Velarde

5:00 pm–6:30 pm | KEYNOTEREGISTER SEPARATELY FOR THE KEYNOTE HERE
A Mi Vida

Kukuli Velarde (Artist) in conversation with Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw (Class of 1940 Bicentennial Term Associate Professor, History of Art, University of Pennsylvania)

Peruvian-American artist Kukuli Velarde will be joined by art historian and curator Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw in the keynote for the Wolf Humanities Center’s February 25 day-long symposium, Migration: Points of Entry, Points of Departure.

Born in Peru, Kukuli Velarde is a Philadelphia-based artist who specializes in painting and ceramic sculptures with a focus on the consequences of colonization in Latin American contemporary culture. Her recent solo exhibitions include Kukuli Velarde: The Complicit Eye at Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia; Kukuli Velarde at AMOCA in Pomona; and Plunder Me, Baby at Peters Project Gallery in Santa Fe; and her work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center; and the Museo de Art Contemporaneo de Lima. Velarde was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2015.

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