Past Projects

Cycle

Funded Projects

Jurors

Winter 2023/2024

Blue Ribbon collaborators Neil Gasparka, Wes Tank, Josh Evert, and Amelinda Burich ask the question “What’s the best art you’ve ever seen?” by documenting interviews with artists they will record an index for future artists to reference.

Bridge Work Professional Development Program administered by Plum Blossom Initiative is a professional development program providing opportunities for emerging artists to implement disciplined work habits, present their work, develop audiences, and establish networks of support and mentorship founded by artist Jason S. Yi and curator Leah Kolb.

DK Nutz Community Art hosts themed open-drawing sessions with a guest artist invited to facilitate each, run by artist Caitlin Rooney.

Dream City, Creative Lives in Milwaukee is a collaborative art magazine reflecting on the experiences of Milwaukee artists, who will be invited to contribute original material revolving around the city’s creative community published by artists Cris Siqueira, Diana H. Chu, Benjamin Grzenia, and community organizer Shelly McClone-Carriere.

Full Moon Karaoke and Variety Show will host two new guest artist projects and will produce the first editions of Full Moon Books to be released alongside the performances/party/karaoke/exhibition organized by artist Sara Caron.

Kitchen Minute creates communal portraits through small gatherings and individual stories using the kitchen as a unifying backdrop resulting in publicly streaming videos and a multi-media cookbook featuring contributor’s profiles, supported by the artist team: Paul Druecke, Ariana Vaeth, Anika Wilson, and Flora Coker.

Moody is a bimonthly print publication along with a Year Three Anthology, run by artist Melissa Mursch-Rodriguez, that aims to connect creative peers, amplify diverse voices, and support artists.

“OK Sss” Open Kitchen, Self-seasoning symposium is an art collective project exploring convergence around a public, collapsible outdoor structure hosting artists-in-residence, topical lectures/conversations, and art exhibitions across three seasons designed by Rudy Medina, Alyx Christensen, and Alan Medina.

Other Dust will host collaborative, experimental workshops, many lead by guest artists, combining traditions such as folk magic, herbalism, divination, and animism with undertones of contemporary art perspectives, queer theory and intersectional feminism facilitated by artist Kayle Karbowski.

Pool v, 2025 will be a week-long workshop consisting of public beach walks/talks with scientists and artists, a mechanism for opening up dialogues about care, climate, and collaboration hosted by artists Sonja Thomsen and Thom Bridge near Lake Michigan.

Some Fools: 2024-2025 Grassroots Curatorial Initiative encourages artistic collaboration by hosting exhibitions, artist talks and community meals run by artists Aliya Moore, Carter Voras, Olivia Keidl, and Sam Lopez with the goal of providing resources directly to artists, imagining a world where artwork and artists are equally upheld, loved and treated with care.

The Alleyway Studio Sessions transforms an urban alleyway into a permanent, dynamic hub for multi-media art, music, exhibitions, poetry, comedy performances, and more; emphasizing innovative artistic engagement in our civic spaces produced by artists Xav Leplae and Ras Ameen.

Underscore run by artists Michael Lagerman and Grace Mitchell, is a project space and screening room whose program supports artists, projects, and collaborations emphasizing an interest in queerness, risk, and experimentation following Milwaukee’s historically DIY approach to the arts.

Yours Truly Midwest Disability Arts Series led by artists Taylor Bucki, Danielle Burrows, and Molly Hassler, is partnering with other Midwest art studios focusing on supporting artists with disabilities to create a series of exhibitions, artist panels, demos, and workshops in their cooperatively-run ceramics studio/contemporary art space in the Riverwest neighborhood.

Candice Davis is a conceptual artist from San Antonio, Texas currently living and working in Minneapolis. She earned a BFA in Web and Multimedia Environments from MCAD in 2018. Her practice is focused on the use of digital media, installation, and performance as a means of witnessing the experiences of marginalized people, with specific emphasis on her experience as a Black woman in the United States.

Tatsuhiko Togashi is a Tokyo-based artist from Yamagata prefecture. He studied at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam and Tokyo University of the Arts before starting the Lavender Opener Chair in 2020 with fellow artists Yoko Daihara and Yohei Watanabe. The artist-run space in Nishiogu, Arakawa Ward functions as a contemporary art gallery supporting emerging artists from Japan and abroad, and also hosts food service by Togashi's at a kitchen-facing counter in the back of the gallery.

Haynes Riley is an artist, curator, designer, and the founder of Good Weather. His work is rooted in relationship building, research, and intellectual generosity, fostered by the generative dynamics of collaboration—through exhibition-making, publishing, and advocacy of artists. He is also the founder of South Center Institute, a not-for-profit organization invested in experimentation and commissioning new work within an integrated supportive infrastructure in Little Rock and North Little Rock, Arkansas.

Spring 2022

Full Moon Karaoke is a monthly karaoke night hosted by artist Sara Caron on the night of the full moon featuring local karaoke performers and performance art as well as costumes and sets designed by artists.

Live AV is an invitational project by Kim Miller and Peter Barrickman pairs unique artist videos with unique artists soundtracks, bringing them together to be performed live.

Kitchen Minute invites people to share their kitchen stories via brief videos developed in the informality of their own kitchens with support from the artist team: Paul Druecke, Eduardo Zavala, Melisa Limanowski, and Joshua Rutherford.

Microlights Cinema is a micro-cinema based in Milwaukee that specializes in programming experimental film and video art run by artists Ben Balcom and Jesse McLean.

Molly Hassler’s In My Chest will host free sewing workshops and binder drives in Milwaukee County for trans masculine people.

Moody is a bi-monthly handmade zine publication featuring artist contributions by queer and/or BIPOC creatives run by Melissa Mursch-Rodriguez.

OK Mmmm! (Open Kitchen, Milwaukee-masa-mole-mill) is a project by Rudy Medina, Alyx Christensen, and Alan Medina that explores hyperlocal food possibilities aiming to challenge food access and homogenous food norms in city settings.

Studio Seiche is an environment-driven workshop crafting cups and pitchers using local, hand-harvested wild clay in forms shaped by Lake Michigan’s shores, culminating in a free exhibition and a zine hosted by Sarah Eli Lu and Nora Leccese.

The Grilled Cheese Grant (GCG) is an annual community fundraising event and emerging artist grant run by Alyssa Sue Anderson, Rachel Hausmann Schall, and Joe Acri that provides financial support for undergraduate seniors at The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD) and The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) who are working towards completing their senior exhibition projects in the areas of Fine Arts and/or Design.

Underscore is a space run by artists Michael Lagerman and Grace Mitchell that emphasizes risk-taking in time-based, installation, performance, and visual art by Queer, BIPOC, and other underrepresented communities.

Usable Space is a series of summer exhibits at a repurposed factory garage in Milwaukee’s Harbor District in the form of small group or two person shows, solo exhibitions, film screenings, and a variety of performances such as live music and stand up comedy run by artist Keith Nelson.

Yours Truly community art space and gallery run by Taylor Bucki, Joe Clark, and Brittany Mahlberg. Molly Hassler's In My Chest will host free sewing workshops and binder drives in Milwaukee County for trans masculine people.

Pao Houa Her is a visual artist living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She works across multiple genres and technologies of photography to address Hmong identity and related notions of desire and belonging within the Hmong American community. Pao holds a BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, MN, and an MFA in Photography from Yale University, CT. She is the recipient of many prestigious fellowships and grants and has exhibited extensively in Minnesota, as well as across the United States, and more recently, in Southeast Asia. Her work is included in this year’s Whitney Biennial 2022.

Daniela Lieja Quintanar is a Los Angeles-based curator and arts researcher. She is the Chief Curator and Director of Programming at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Her curatorial practice takes inspiration from everyday spaces of political struggle and collective forms of knowledge production. Her research focuses on gestures of collective solidarity and organizing within the Americas. In 2018, she received the Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Research Grant for the exhibition Intergalactix:against isolation/contra el aislamiento (2021), which featured collaborative work across Central América, Mexico, and their diasporas in the US.

Nat Pyper is an alphabet artist. In their work and writing, they use language as a sieve and they push the body through it. Their visual work has shown at Chuquimarca Projects, Gene Siskel Film Center, and RUSCHWOMAN in Chicago, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, and Printed Matter in New York City. Their written work has been published by Are.na, Draw Down Books, Drawstring Magazine, GenderFail, Inga Books, Martian Press, Queer.Archive.Work, and the Walker Art Center. They received their MFA from the Yale School of Art. They are currently a 2021-22 HATCH Artist Resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition.

Winter 2020

In response to the impact on visual artists caused by COVID-19, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts worked with its Regional Re-granting Partners to distribute COVID-19 emergency relief funds. The Grant offered $1,000 in relief funds to 60 individual artists in the Milwaukee County.

The Open Fund

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