ArtReach is proud to announce the 13 projects that were awarded funding through our new 2023 Artist Creation Project granting program!
These grant funds are available thanks to our partnership with the Toronto Arts Council
Ace Kazkayasi: Breath
Ace will produce "Breath", an impactful 3-minute experimental short film which seeks to shed light on the often-hidden struggles of abuse survivors. The project's primary motivation is to challenge common misconceptions about abuse and its survivors while humanizing their experiences.
Bisma Jay: Stolen Suppers
Bisma will create a photography series exploring the impact of rising food costs, which forces many people to steal basic food items. They will gather anonymous testimonials from youth who have been caught shoplifting, and shoot a series of five photographs capturing the youths’ stolen food items.
Damon Couto-Hill: Unfolding
Damon will produce a series of 3-4 life-sized portraits painted on folded and sewn canvas to interrogate colonial imaginations of ideal and grotesque bodies. He will use photography, digital collage, and other collage methodologies to satirize the emergence of white supremacist, patriarchal, ableist ideologies from Western collective consciousness.
Jasmine Yiweza: Kiss Your Friends on the Mouth
Jasmine will produce a short documentary as a love letter to friendship. The film will be a collection of interviews, camcorder footage, and archival materials exploring the excitement that comes from knowing others and being known- choosing to give them your time and energy and knowing that they have chosen you back.
Lilah Hill: Community Care is Punk
Lilah will create a zine that acts as a love letter to the disabled community, who have continued to show each other care and compassion throughout the ongoing pandemic, even in the face of government abandonment. It will explore the idea of care as a radical act of resistance, celebrate those who are already participating, and encourage those who aren't to join in.
Marcella Driver-Moliner: Critter Persona
Marcella will create a 60-second computer-generated animation (CGI) that employs satire and metaphor to depict a world inhabited by insects to explore the themes related to the convoluted search to represent and honour identities.
Miracle Trigger: Project Sparky
Miracle Trigger will develop “Project: Sparky," an engaging 2.5D, turn-based digital RPG game. "Project: Sparky" unfolds a captivating journey in the digital gaming world, emphasizing storytelling and stunning visuals.
Nailah Renuka: Threadbare
Nailah will create a contemporary aerial hoop act that explores the delicate balance performers face between pursuing technical perfection and expressing their authentic, vulnerable artistic voice. Threadbare aims to lead the audience through an artist's journey as they navigate their way into the powerful embrace of vulnerability and learn to celebrate the beauty found in imperfection, urging the audience to reflect on their own relationship with authenticity
Niya Ahmed Abdullahi: Sabti Yaam
Niya will create a single channel video and projection, short diasporic film that will take viewers into the world of a young girl from Scarborough with roots in Harar. Set during a found-family get together over boon (coffee), the film emphasizes how these gatherings keep us grounded and allow us to remember what is important.
noonjeem: There Will Be Glimmers
noonjeem will create a 4-song EP called There Will Be Glimmers. Glimmers is a term used to explain micro-moments that signal safety, and calm our nervous system down. The EP will be approached from a techno-spiritual lens, weaving together sound synthesis, field recordings and the human voice to unearth the sacred and the profane in the everyday.
Phoenyx: A Rose Is Still a Rose
Phoenyx will deliver a mixed-media zine project exploring how Black women and femmes experience desirability. Through short-form essay, interviews, and digital collage, the zine will explore how Black women and femmes, LGBTQIA+ and heterosexual alike, seek out their physical and emotional pleasure in this landscape.
Sun: Nama Ooru Thai Pongal
Sun will create and present large-scale paintings surrounding themes around Thai Pongal, a celebration of the harvest and the beginning of the month of Thai, the first month in the Tamil Solar calendar, and a time to show gratitude for the land, for nature, and for community. The paintings will explore reflections on the relationship with the ritual as a 1.5 generation Tamil Immigrant.
Wura Sol: New Year, New Sound
Wura will write, record, produce, mix, and master new music to be released in Spring 2024. Through meticulous writing and an improved sound, Wura’s goal is to write and release quality music with an elevated sound.
We were also able to invest in the artistic development the following artists:
Bhuchung Kata- a storyteller and filmmaker
Colis Alleyne- a paint pour artist and poet
Dizzy Ricamara- a filmmaker and creative director
Hyunsun Park- a emerging illustrator and painter specializing in gouache
jefferydraws- a multimedia 2D animator and storyboard artist
kiwimii- a multidisciplinary artist, cartoonist, illustrator, and workshop programmer
La-Vane Kelly- a multidisciplinary artist, writer, poet, ceramicist, and digital artist
Maryam Mohamed- a textile artist and dressmaker
Meïdy Grégoire- an art director, producer, and curator
Veeda Tanwir- a textile artist and visual artist
Yunguava- a weaver, performance artist, costume designer, stylist, and creative director
💸✨ Want to learn more about this grant? Head to artreach.org/projectgrant! ✨💸