Locust Projects Announces 2022 WaveMaker Grants
Locust Projects is proud to announce the recipients of the 2022 WaveMaker Grants! Through the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Regional Regranting Program, Locust Projects has granted $60,000 in WaveMaker Incubator Grants to 12 Miami Artists supporting experimental public projects. This cycle of the WaveMaker program marks a total of $510,000 in grants since 2015.
The 2022 WaveMakers are: New Work / Projects: Trae DeLellis & Juan Barquin, Pamela Largaespada, Phil Lique, Julian Montalvo & Fredo Rivera, Terence Price II, and Roscoè B.
Thické III; Long-Haul Projects: Loni Johnson and Monica Uszerowicz; Research & Development + Implementation: Liz Ferrer & Bow Ty, A.G., Monica Sorelle, and Ema Ri.
The grantees this year were selected by a panel of reviewers including, Chire Regans (VantaBlack), Miami-based artist and community activist, 2021 WaveMaker awardee, and recipient of the Oolite Arts’ Ellies Social Justice Award in 2021; Summer Jade Leavitt, director of The Queer Theory Library, Curatorial and Cultural Programs Associate at Deering Estate and 2021 WaveMaker awardee for The Queer Theory Library; and Michael Linares Vazquez, Puerto Rico-based artist and Co-director of Beta Local, a San Juan nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting aesthetic thought and practice through programs and projects.
These twelve grantees were chosen from over 100 applications for their conceptual rigor and relevance to the local cultural, geographic, and socio-economic context, impact on the local community, and the accessibility of the resulting project to the public.
Meet the Wavemakers
NEW WORK/PROJECTS - $6,000
Juan Barquin & Trae DeLellis - Bitter Tears of South Florida Queers: The Bitter Tears of South Florida Queers is a one-night, multidisciplinary celebration of queer cinema, design, and performance. Hosted by Flaming Classics, the evening commences with a 50th anniversary screening of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, which remains a touchstone of queer cinema. A fashion show inspired by the film and its characters will follow, spotlighting garments created by local queer designers and modeled by local drag artists.
Pamela Largaespada - Guerrillera: Guerrillera is a short film about a sex worker whose child is taken from her due to a false accusation and the case worker assigned to them. In collaboration with sex workers and using elements of surrealism, Guerrillera is an overdue positive representation of sex work and motherhood.
Phil Lique - artDeli: At the center of an immersive deli environment with food-themed wallpaper, deli posters, butcher paper, and more, artworks are displayed in a deli case and sold in increments, cut by a band saw, paper slicer, hammer, scissors, blender, or other tools. Using performativity, chance, and humor, artDeli shifts the commodity of art collecting out of the gallery and into a context more familiar and accessible to a general audience.
Julian Montalvo & Fredo Rivera - island bound: an exercise in decolonizing drag island bound: an exercise in decolonizing drag is a collaborative performance project by artists KUNST (Julian Montalvo) and Lolita Cabrón (Fredo Rivera) exploring decoloniality in a specifically Puerto Rican context. Drawing from historical archives, cartography, the built environment, soundscapes, and contemporary visual cultures of the “postcolonial colony,” the durational performance, which uses sculptural installation to visualize Puerto Rico and its diasporas, will provide an intimate and dramatic rendering of queer resistance in relation to coloniality.
Terence Price II - Finding Sue: This experimental short documentary aims to use archive images and footage to tell the story of finding and meeting Price II’s grandmother Susana White, his father’s long-lost mother, after 53 years. This story of perseverance and love is meant to propel folks to continue searching. This project also shines a light on the many stories from black, indigenous and people of color that are missing and how family agencies are failing to provide information to help uphold these histories so that loved ones can continue to search.
Roscoè B. Thické III - Fatherhood: Fabrication of Fatherhood is an intimate study of the myths, stereotypes, perceptions, and truths of fatherhood in the Black community. Beginning with conversations about the role fathers have played in their lives, collaborators will be invited to offer materials connected to their memories or thoughts on fatherhood. They will then participate in a photography session guided by the conversation to capture how Black fatherhood feels to them. The photographs and materials will be shared in a space created by a father for fathers.
LONG-HAUL PROJECTS - $6,000
Loni Johnson - What We Hold Sacred: Altar Making Workshop Series: What We Hold Sacred invites guests to use meaningful objects--such as photographs, memorabilia, crystals, jewelry, and more--to build small altars as offerings to their ancestors. Participants will be guided to reflect on how we claim, navigate, and hold space; how ancestral and historical memory informs where, when, and how we occupy spaces; and how we carry and honor our ancestors in the spaces we move through. The workshops offer Black women and girls a shared space of healing and rest where they are visible and validated.
Monica Uszerowicz - Dreaming as the Water Rises: Are you dreaming of water rising? Dreaming as the Water Rises is a living archive of the sea-level rise and water dreams of Florida residents. These dreams might constitute data, a record of the subconscious, shaped by our shared experience of climate change. Perhaps they can also act as calls to action, from deep in our psyches, to care for the planet and imagine new possibilities for the future. Dreaming as the Water Rises will culminate in a presentation of the multilingual, virtual archive; an essay; and a collaborative zine.
RESEARCH + DEVELOPMENT / IMPLEMENTATION
Liz Ferrer & Bow Ty - [Cries in Spanish] | Implementation - $4,000: Written in the style of melodramatic telenovelas, camp comedies, and reality TV shows, [Cries in Spanish] is an episodic series highlighting the variety of fem Latinx experiences through individual narratives. Using animation, digital backgrounds, and framing analysis, and designed for accessibility, [Cries in Spanish] blends real and fictional stories in English and Spanish. The series follows displaced fems and queer people as they deal with various issues, from familiar struggles with language and immigration status to lesser discussed complications that appear at the intersection of queer Latinx identity.
A.G. - Queer Strategy & Tactics: a performative lecture | Research & Development - $2,000: Modeled after the United States Army's longstanding practice of classified intelligence debriefing, Queer Strategy and Tactics is a performative lecture presenting solution-based ideas for queer-identifying people navigating within a normative regime. Subverting concepts found in theatrical training--character development, art-direction, production tradecraft, set design, costume, hair & makeup, scene studies, partner-work, and much more--Queer Strategy & Tactics offers a set of conceptual tools for practical approaches to the limitless potential of bodies, preferences, and styles of living.
Monica Sorelle - Transfer | Research & Development - $2,000: Linking intimate family moments to the Caribbean diaspora at large, Transfer is a video project relating the transfer of physical media into digital data to the passing down of nostalgia, folklore, trauma, and genetic memory from family and community members by utilizing home movies, video projection mapping, and the degradation of media otherwise known as generation loss.
Ema Ri - Here With You | Implementation - $4,000: After researching local flowers as sculptural material, Here With You culminates in a large-scale flower bed where people lay over the silhouettes of bodies imprinted in the bed by those who visited the immersive sculpture before them. The work is experienced with all senses and invites a moment of healing and grounding.
WaveMaker Grants @ Locust Projects are made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Regional Regranting Program, a network of 32 regranting partners across the country. country: Alabama - The Verdant Fund, Albuquerque - 516 ARTS: Fulcrum Fund, Atlanta - Atlanta Contemporary Nexus Fund, Baltimore - Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation: GRIT Fund, Boston - Collective Futures Fund, Chicago - Threewalls & Gallery 400: Propeller Fund, Cleveland - SPACES: The Satellite Fund, Denver - RedLine Contemporary Art Center: INSITE Fund, Detroit - CultureSource: Flourish Fund, Houston - Aurora Picture Show, DiverseWorks, & Project Row Houses: The Idea Fund, Indianapolis - Power Plant Grant, Kansas City - Charlotte Street Foundation & Spencer Museum of Art: Rocket Grants, Los Angeles - LACE Lightning Fund, Miami - Locust Projects: WaveMaker Grants, Milwaukee- The Open Fund, Minneapolis - Midway Contemporary Art: Visual Arts Fund, Knoxville - Current Art Fund, New Orleans - Antenna & Ashé Cultural Arts Center: Platforms Fund, Newark - Newark Artist Accelerator, Omaha- Populus Fund, Philadelphia - Temple Contemporary: The Velocity Fund, Phoenix and Tucson (AZ) - Night Bloom: Grants for Artists of the Sonoran Desert, Portland (ME)- SPACE Gallery: The Kindling Fund, Portland (OR) - Portland Institute for Contemporary Art: Precipice Fund, Providence - Interlace Grant Fund, Raleigh and Greensboro (NC) - Pivotal Fund, Saint Louis - The Luminary: Futures Fund, San Francisco - Southern Exposure: Alternative Exposure, San Juan, PR - Beta Local, Seattle - Collective Power Fund, Washington DC - Washington Project for the Arts: Wherewithal Grants.