A woman with black braids and a colorful blouse smiles in a close-up photo.

Baltimore Futures – $ 10,000 

Baltimore Futures:  A series of public art installations enhanced by Augmented Reality technology, produced in collaboration with youth in 3 Baltimore City communities. This award will fund the creation of a series of public art projects, designed and installed in collaboration with Baltimore youth ages 14-21 And elder resident over 65.

Each project will be enhanced by augmented reality (AR) content, creating a mixed reality experience, where there is both a physical artwork and an interactive, virtual, 3D version of the artwork. AR content will be accessible by Internet connected devices (smart phones, tablets, etc.). and will literally leap off the installation surface, with the potential for viewers to interact with photos, video, sound, music, animation, and gamified elements.   

A woman with long black hair in a braid and a white tank top sits in front of a colorful painting.

Studio House Baltimore – $ 10,000 

STUDIOHOUSE is a residency for self-directed artists that emerged in December 2021. The project is open throughout the year with a pause in programming November through January. STUDIOHOUSE hosts free, and open to the public artist talks and workshops in the Spring, Summer, and Fall.

A rotating group of 3 – 4 artists are in residence at any time, with length of stays ranging from 2 weeks, to 1, 3, or 6 months, and a maximum stay of a year.  The mission of STUDIOHOUSE is to be a dynamic incubator for artists to live, commune, and work. The project is situated in a 4-story corner row home in East Baltimore, Maryland across from Lake Montebello, in Coldstream Homestead Montebello.  

A woman with wavy black hair and a hoop earrings.

My Journey is the Garden: Mothering City Boys Who Grow Towards the Sun – $ 8,000 

 “My Journey is The Garden: Mothering City Boys Who Grow Towards the Sun” is the brainchild of Nicola Uatuva, a mother, multidisciplinary artist and organizer. The project is a visual and cinematic exploration of the experiences of mothers raising black and brown boys in Baltimore City. It is a creative strategy for celebrating and affirming motherhood, while navigating the conflating pressures of inflation (to maintain stable households), as well as the pressures of society’s adultification of black boys into sustainable empowerment. 

Through portraiture, film, a workshop and public facing exhibition, this project centers and lifts up the experience and aspirations of 7 mothers through portrait photography by Kirby Griffin, a future visioning workshop catered to black mothers, and a short documentary film utilizing interview audio and b-roll from the workshop by Sha-Shonna Rogers. The public facing components are the opening and closing exhibition which the latter will include a showing of the short film and both will include portrait gallery, and panel discussions with participating mothers.  

A man with a black beard holds a lily.

REINSTATED: LIVING LEGACIES – $ 7,000 

REINSTATED: Living Legacies is an event series that brings back cultural events of recent Baltimore history with an emphasis on highlighting their cultural legacy and impact. The curatorial focus will be on social gatherings, happenings and special occasions…each hosted on a single night to frame some of the significant contributions made by individuals through an experimental means.

Through this event series we want the stories of community and gathering to have an impact on how we imagine ourselves, as architects of the next 20 years, how we can build and influence lost histories and work on their preservation. This series will occur at various venues and sites across the city. 

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BRUSH Mural Fest – Programming & Events – $ 5,000 

 Our mission at BRUSH Mural Fest is to cultivate community and show how resilient and vibrant Baltimore really is, while highlighting the talent and skills of the artists who live and work here. The culminating day-of BRUSH Mural Fest event will be held on October 21st, at the Lexington Market Plaza. There are several goals for this festival: (1) to be Baltimore City-focused; (2) to provide opportunities for muralists to showcase their artwork and have creative freedom; and (3) to advocate for the value of murals and provide education on how to run a mural business.  We also believe that community engagement is a crucial part of creating strong, long lasting public art projects. Thus, plans for community engagement have been crafted for each individual mural and will take various forms ranging from publicly accessible Community Paint Days to Community Input Meetings.  

A promo graphic for Hot Bits that features a film screening.

Hot Bits Film Festival – $ 5,000 

Hot Bits is a queer erotic film festival, centering QTIBIPoC (queer, trans, intersex, Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) self-determined desire, joy, and pleasure as an act of collective liberation. We highlight underrepresented bodies in celebration of anti-oppressive queer/trans erotica that shares experiences, acts and stories often deemed marginal by mainstream society. Grit Fund will support Hot Bits in Baltimore in 2024, with a brand new line up of films, performers, expanded programming and partnerships while increasing support for our artists, curators, and collaborators.

A woman in a red shirt that stands behind a seated woman in a black blouse. Both hold long sticks.

Manifesting the Metaphysical: Beyond Black Grief – $5,000 

 The Black community has and continues to face disparities in mental health treatment due to trauma, stigma, access to healthcare, oppression, racism, and more. It is incredibly important to intentionally generate safe, welcoming spaces in order to have impactful conversations on these relentless issues.  “Manifesting the Metaphysical: Beyond Black Grief” is a curatorial community engagement project inviting Black and Afro-Indigenous creators to a series of intentional programming, including Zoom discussions, healing through artmaking workshops, community gatherings and activities, and an exhibition.

Our intended outcome with this project is to provide intentional discourse to educate, learn, and inform our community and allies alike about the intersections of struggles within the Black experience and emphasize the importance of access, support, creative outlets, and community. 

Two women with long curly hair sit on stools and laugh.

Naughty: Burlesque Documentary (working title) – $ 5,000

 Naughty: Baltimore’s Burlesque Scene (working title) is a feature-length documentary from two performers in Baltimore’s burlesque community. This film investigates the world of Burlesque through the lens of two performing troupes in the DMV. It seeks to highlight and educate audiences about burlesque and the art form’s vital role in Baltimore’s queer performing arts landscape. Naughty celebrates Baltimore’s burlesque community and its vibrancy within the performing art world. We believe producing this film, as community members, and with the participation of others within its subculture, will show an entirely new perspective toward burlesque—something we have yet to see in the industry. Burlesque’s campy quality and DIY charm feel authentic to Baltimore, and Naughty not only shows audiences the value behind building community spaces but celebrates its rich and diverse participants, shifting our social perceptions of the performing art at large. 

 

A promo graphic that says Invisible Architectures and a rust-colored screen with trees on it.

Invisible Architectures: Radical Archives for Future Institutions – $ 5,000 

 Invisible Architectures is a multi-year, interdisciplinary container designed to create avenues for projects and programs that reinscribe the voices of Black, brown, indigenous and immigrant populations. Grit Fund will support an interdisciplinary art festival.

The theme for the curated show at Current Space will be Social Contracts. Social Contracts as concept is one that is relevant to the state of our relationship to art, education, and the roles that we all play in society to hold ourselves accountable to one another. What happens when the contract is broken? What happens when we consider the possibilities beyond a social contract? We will invite artists to respond to these questions. The exhibition/festival will be accompanied by a co-edited publication. 

The Jury

An abstract image with the colors pink, peach, and orange are in the shape of a triangle standing on it's point. A dark brown wave bisecting the image.

A. Moon (she/they)

is an experimental film and video maker whose work has screened nationally and internationally. She has been the recipient of awards from the Princess Grace Foundation and numerous film festivals. In recent years, she has also been a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, a fellow with the Center for Asian American Media, a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award winner (x3), a Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance Rubys grantee for media (x2), and a Sondheim Prize Semi-Finalist (x3).

A hexagon frames Amy Reid's light skinned face with a slight smile, glasses and pink hair. The background is a hot pink with a few white angled lines.

Amy Reid (she/they) – Grit Fund 2019 recipient

is a Baltimore-based queer electronic musician, producer, sound and visual artist striving to transform spaces sonically, socially, and visually. Since 2010, she has toured nationally and internationally in her band Chiffon and solo in the UK, France and Portugal and has shared the stage with critically acclaimed artists. Ranging from DIY foundations to Museums, she has performed at The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, The Walters Art Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, The Kennedy Center, and at the Red Bull Amaphiko Festival held in Baltimore, MD 2018. 

In addition to her music practice, she founded Baltimore’s GRL PWR Collective in 2014 whose mission is to create platforms for women and LGBTQ identifying people, elevating visibility for under-represented artists and talent.  

A triangle image of Ayla Jai looking directly into the camera. They have medium brown skin, curly dark hair and a slight smile. A deep orange background is intersected with white lines

Ayla Jai (they/them)

is an artist native to Baltimore City. Their love of creative expression has led them to publish poetic works, appear on stage and screen, and lead educational workshops for local youth. They have worked in event coordination, community engagement and communications acting as a support to numerous nonprofits throughout Baltimore, andcontinue that work as a juror with The Grit Fund. 

A hexagonal shape of Rachel Bone looking directly into the camera. She has light skin, a slight smile and red wavy hair. The background is turquoise with white intersecting lines

Rachel Bone (she/her) – Grit Fund 2019 recipient

is an artist, writer and arts organizer in Baltimore City. In her 18 years in Baltimore, she has grown a socially conscious apparel line, co-founded an arts collective, nurtured an active art practice, written about art, craft, and entrepreneurship in the Mid-Atlantic region, taught print and digital arts at Towson University, and co-founded a thriving international animation festival featuring live music and performances. She is an enthusiastic advocate for artists and creative entrepreneurs in Baltimore, and currently works at an arts non-profit supporting arts programming in schools. Rachel is a 2019 recipient of the Grit Fund award for the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival.  

A triangle shape image of Talbolt Johnson grins widely. He has medium brown skin, facial piercings and a beard. White intersecting lines bisect the image

Talbolt Johnson (he/him)

is an alchemist, dancer, dreamer, and advocate for dance since 2005. He pursued a career in art only to discover movement for over a decade in the Baltimore area and the east coast. Johnson explores the functions of the human body, imagination, mythos, and space in unison. His work attempts to contemplate and comment on the intersection between expression and identity. He is a street dancer, writer, and musician of life.