The Ignite Fund Announces 2024 Cohort of Artist Grantees
$60,000 of project support for Chicago-area artists
CHICAGO, IL (November 8, 2024)— The Ignite Fund, supporting experimental and groundbreaking visual arts-based work by Chicago-area artists and artist-led collectives, has announced its 2024 cohort of grantees. Seven artists and three artist-led collectives are receiving a combined total of $60,000 to support the creation and implementation of new, public-facing works.
Open to artists in Chicago’s six-county metropolitan area, The Ignite Fund received 58 applications that were reviewed by a national jury panel. The jury’s selections align with The Ignite Fund’s goal of prioritizing projects that center the visual arts, promote collaboration, raise awareness around social justice issues, engage local communities, and incorporate accessibility services in public presentations. Complete descriptions of this year’s grantee cohort and jury panel are available on the Ignite Fund website: www.ignitefund.org.
The Ignite Fund is administered by Chicago-based nonprofit organization 3Arts as part of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program.
The 2024 Ignite Fund grantees and projects are:
AfroDisco Social Hour: Communion— A Gratitude Dinner and Public Art Experience ($6,000)
Inspired by artist Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and author and visionary bell hooks’ bestselling trilogy series All About Love, Communion is a dinner party, discussion, and immersive art experience that explores representations and acts of love within Black and queer social life and celebrates the work of Chicago-based Black cultural workers who exemplify a commitment to uplifting ethics of love, respect, and community care.
bARBER (he/him): MORE LIFE ($6,000)
MORE LIFE seeks to celebrate the culture of North Lawndale through a cultural aesthetic specific to Black America with an urban monument and Black American Flag ceremony. The urban monument will be modeled after urban memorials typically found in Black American neighborhoods nationwide. The Black American flag ceremony will be accompanied by a poem and craft contest promoting cultural enrichment and artistic expression. The goal of MORE LIFE is to amplify and promote cultural integrity and appreciation amongst Black Americans through the act of cultural preservation.
Jordan Barrant (she/they): Sisters and Spirit: Pat McCombs ($6,000)
Sisters and Spirit is an oral history project that explores the narratives of aging Black lesbians. The second installment, Sisters and Spirit: Executive Sweet, examines the life and legacy of the organizers behind a Chicago based lesbian-only club in the 1980’s formerly called Executive Sweet.
Cris (he/him): No Me Voy A Olvidar de Ti ($6,000)
No Me Voy A Olvidar de Ti stems from Cris’ personal experiences of skewed perspectives resulting from the predominant portrayal of white gay culture in media. As a South Side queer youth, the absence of representation within his community was glaring until college exposed him to broader histories and their significance in fostering connections among LGBTQ+ peers. To address this, No Me Voy A Olvidar de Ti will be a map of lost and existing spaces from the 70’s to the early 90’s, presenting a comprehensive view of Chicago's LGBTQ+ history beyond the confines of today's Boystown neighborhood.
Linye Jiang 江麟冶 (she/her): Picking a Fruit ($6,000)
Picking a Fruit is a collaborative project that explores the complexities of queer identity. The project invites queer East Asian women and non-binary individuals in Chicago to engage with Linye’s previous work, Fruit Portraits. Participants will select a fruit that resonates with their personal experiences and identity. They will share their stories, explaining why they chose their fruit and how it represents their reflections as queer individuals. The resulting artworks will highlight the interplay between the chosen fruits and the participants' identities, offering a layered exploration of cultural and personal symbolism.
Laboratory of Material Slippage (Serena JV Elston and Vince Phan): Hanging Garden of Midsummer's Feast ($6,000)
Hanging Garden of Midsummer's Feast is an outdoor sculpture designed as an immersive banquet space that delves into the intricate interplay of native and foreign bodies within both ecological and sociological contexts. By intertwining themes of rootedness and migration, this project initiates a dialogue on cohabitation, exploring how diverse biological species and human communities can support each other's existence within shared habitats. These gatherings will not only nourish the participants but also reinforce the themes of ecological and social cohabitation.
Miguel Limón (they/them): Ink & Impact ($6,000)
Ink & Impact is an exploration of Chicago’s rich print media heritage, led by Miguel Limón. Through a series of workshops and events hosted at community organizations across the city, participants will engage with experimental printmaking techniques while delving into archival materials. These workshops will uncover the pivotal role of print media in historical movements such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lord’s Party, The Chicago Defender, and the Chicago Women’s Graphic Collective with resources drawn from archives across Chicago institutions.
Le Hien Minh (she/her): Nail Women ($6,000)
Nail Women is a community-based, socially engaged, long-form moving image project that delves into the experiences of Vietnamese female nail technicians in Chicago. The project compiles a series of interviews exploring concepts of selfhood and cultural identity within a distinct segment of the Vietnamese diaspora. Aligned with the tradition of American Social Realism and inspired by Julia Reichert's approach to social documentary filmmaking, Le Hien Minh gives the Vietnamese female nail technicians the space to speak for themselves, offering a powerful perspective rarely seen.
Farah Salem (she/her): Wisdoms & Endurances: A Sequence of Ancestral Invocations ($6,000)
Wisdoms & Endurances: A Sequence of Ancestral Invocations is a series of collaborative and socially engaging workshops primarily inspired by migratory somatic healing practices from the Arabian Peninsula, which center relationships between bodies and land. These workshops are cross-culturally adaptive, inviting individuals of SWANA heritage to reflect and co-generate insights on their personal and ancestral migration stories of endurance and wisdom while opening this conversation to a global context.
Sinag Arts Collective: Celebrating Filipino Heritage: A Collaborative Mural at the Rizal Community ($6,000)
Celebrating Filipino Heritage: A Collaborative Mural at the Rizal Community will narrate the rich history of Filipino immigration to Chicago and the United States. This mural will celebrate the cultural heritage and contributions of the Filipino community by involving fourteen artists, each bringing their unique style and voice to a collaborative masterpiece. The artwork will depict the cultural history of the Rizal Center, which has been a cornerstone of the Filipino community for nearly 50 years.
For press or media inquiries, please contact Cat Tager at cat@3arts.org or 312-443-9621.
About 3Arts
Founded in 1912, with a history centered on women artists, 3Arts is a nonprofit organization that supports artists working in the performing, teaching, and visual arts in the Chicago metropolitan area, including women artists, artists of color, and Deaf and disabled artists. By providing unrestricted awards, project funding, residencies, professional development, and promotion, 3Arts helps artists take risks, experiment, and build momentum in their careers over time. Since 2007, 3Arts has supported more than 2,300 artists across all program areas, representing 68% women artists, 73% artists of color, and 22% Deaf and disabled artists working in the six-county metropolitan area, and distributed $7.4 million through our grantmaking.
For more information, please visit 3arts.org.
About the Regional Regranting Program
The Ignite Fund is funded through the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program. The Regional Regranting Program was established in 2007 to recognize and support the movement of independently organized, public-facing, artist-centered activity that animates local and regional art scenes but that lies beyond the reach of traditional funding sources. The program is administered by non-profit visual art centers across the United States that work in partnership with the Foundation to fund artists’ experimental projects and collaborative undertakings.
The 35 regranting programs provide grants of up to $10,000 for the creation and presentation of new work. Programs are developed and facilitated by organizations in Albuquerque (NM), Atlanta (GA), Baltimore (MD), Boston (MA), Buffalo (NY), Chicago (IL), Cleveland (OH), Denver (CO), Detroit (MI), Houston (TX), Indianapolis (IN), Iowa City (IA), Kansas City (MO), Knoxville (TN), Rapid City (SD), Los Angeles (CA), Miami (FL), Milwaukee (WI), Minneapolis (MN), Mobile (AL), New Orleans (LA), Newark (NJ), O’ahu (HI) Oklahoma City (OK), Omaha (NE), Philadelphia (PA), Tucson (AZ), Portland (ME), Portland (OR), Providence (RI), Raleigh (NC), Saint Louis (MO), San Francisco (CA), San Juan (PR), Seattle (WA), and Washington, DC.
For more information, please visit https://warholfoundation.org/grants/regional-regranting.
About The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, the mission of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts is the advancement of the visual arts. The Foundation manages an innovative and flexible grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogue raisonné projects. To date, the Foundation has given nearly $300 million in cash grants to more than 1,000 arts organizations in 49 states and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide.
For more information, please visit https://warholfoundation.org.