Grants for Individuals & Collectives: Stream 1 Winter 2024

Through Connections & Exchanges: A Ten-Year Plan to Transform Arts and Heritage In Edmonton, the EAC has committed to supporting a wide range of art forms and practices to foster experimentation, creative collaborations with community and public presentations, as well as activities to advance individual skills, including mentorships and professional development. 

Stream 1: Exploration & Experimentation of the Individuals & Collectives program supports an individual artist to work on creation, experimentation, or research activities. Grant amounts are fixed at $5,000 to support subsistence and any additional costs to the individual while they take the time to pursue artistic work. 

In this cycle of the program, thirty-six (36) artists were recommended for the Winter 2024 Individuals & Collectives Stream 1 grant, for a total of $180,000. Learn more about the Stream 1 recipients below: 

Anahi Palomec McKenna will research and experiment with cross-cultural forms of beading and embroidery to explore the similarities and differences in design and craftsmanship between Mexican and Canadian Indigenous art practices.

Andrew Thorne’s Scraps of Living Mail Art Exchange project is aimed at exploring the creation of mail art, by applying processes in printmaking and developing ongoing collaborations with participants through mail. 

Ava Karvonen will conduct interviews and research to inform a creative treatment for a documentary that looks at aging and the role of the elderly through the eyes of an artist. 

Beppie will attend a four-day writing retreat to begin the composition and creation of her seventh full-length children’s album. 

Chelsey Campbell will dedicate three months of their artistic practice to researching companion planting in domestic gardens, exploring natural, sustainable pigments for print media and textiles, and building community connections with other queer crip artists.

Cherie Howard will create a collection of hand-painted leather garments; bringing vintage leather garments to life through the captivating touch of paintbrushes. 

Christine Lesiak will research and write first and second drafts of a new one-act, lighthearted comedy play for two actors, and experiment with shadow puppetry techniques for integrated visual storytelling. 

Emily Rain will create digital art illustrations for children’s books and translate them into the Iithga-Stoney language. 

erψn temp3st will spend six weeks developing their skills and continuing research on an existing body of work which combines dance research with 3D modeling, 3D scan technologies, and computer coding. 

Harrison Varley will write the first draft of his sci-fi novel Flower Days, which analyses humanity’s relationship with technology and the impact of artificial intelligence. 

Hengameh Kharaghani will work with a consultant and a dramaturg to explore gender, gender roles, and sin in a fictional Muslim community through the first draft of a play. 

Ilsa Ahmad will work on a series of mixed-media textile experiments that combine early internet ephemera, screenshots, personal diary entries and free-flow drawings through image transfer, digital textile printing and patchwork quilting techniques. 

Isabelle Kuzio will explore kinetic art by building automatons. She will experiment with fusing sculpture and movement; crafting interactive, emotion-evoking scenes driven by manual engineering mechanisms. 

Jacob Do will analyze harmonic structure, melodic material, and rhythmic aspects of composition and improvisation of various jazz greats, using transcription, imitation, and personalization to further inform his artistic approach. 

Jennifer Walker will revise and edit her contemporary middle grade novel, SNICKERDOODLES, in preparation for her attendance at the Highlights Whole Novel Workshop in August 2024. 

Katerina Rain will explore, research and document Nakoda-Iithga ideologies through traditional oral stories so that she can observe the nuances and complexities of Iithga storytelling in her Indigenous language. 

KO, an independent dance artist, will first explore new vocabulary inventions on her own, and then facilitate and participate in group improvisational performance techniques to collaboratively build a series of live ensemble ​“insta-composition” scores. 

Kira Hunt will conduct several small-scale artistic experiments that explore the biology of algae in sculpture, lanterns, and storytelling. 

Leslea Kroll will explore dramatic possibilities within her short script Babblers by experimenting with and expanding upon the existing premise and characters as she adapts it into a full-length one act play. 

Lexi Pendzich will research and develop videos that document a DIY skateboard park and the diversity of riders that access the space, showcasing community and the growing inclusivity of skateboard culture. 

Lindsey Bond will experiment with photographic printmaking and inherited fibre-media to mend personal and public archives, working towards more sustainable and everyday decolonial practice on Treaty 6 Territory. 

Lorelle will deepen and refine her practice by researching and developing new ceramic glazing skills, experimenting with mixing compounds, exploring various techniques and creating new work. 

Matthew Wyllie​’s new dance creation, Harmony Shift, will explore how images and the work itself portray the symbiotic communication between movement and sound. 

Maureen Callihoo Ligtvoet, an Indigenous artist, will practice her family’s traditions, and honour their shared histories and women’s stories, through multimedia cultural art practices mixed with contemporary media. 

Michelle Campos Castillo will explore and develop her portrait practice. 

Mohammad Abbasi is revisiting his 2019 Boat Series with a second series that will explore the immigrant narrative through a fusion of surrealism and abstraction. 

Monica Gate will visit Miawpukek Reserve to research Mi’kmaq culture through conversations with Knowledge Keepers and participation in community events; she will apply this research to a first draft script of Donut Holes.

Rebecca Pickard/​Little Mama Bee will gather stories and images of her ancestors from the Lac La Biche Métis Settlement and the lands they dwelled on. She will then experiment with image transfer, beading and paint to reanimate them. 

Riaz Mehmood will research, experiment, and explore the anthotype (nature) printing process for the creation of an artist’s book. 

Rob Curtis will create the initial draft of Mass at Journey’s End, a large-scale choral work arising from a cancer journey, speaking to processing grief and discovering hope. 

Set Apart Fine Art (Hollis Hunter) will learn plaster mold-making and ceramic slip-casting techniques to expand his sculpture practice and improve his capacity to replicate results. 

Shawnee Danielle will explore using animal pelts and hides as substrates in her oil paintings. 

Shyanne Duquette will draft the script for Skinhead, a theatre production about a young white-passing Indigenous man and his group of friends. 

Tesh Aytenfisu will develop a 30-minute feature stand-up comedy set to perform in clubs, festivals, and Canadian television. 

Vivian Han-Tat will experiment with new media techniques to explore how the golden age of import car culture brought community and a sense of belonging to first generation East and South-East Asian-Canadian youth of the 2000s and into today. 

Yegtrinifeters (Ottis Ross) will design prototypes of Mas Costumes that showcase the story and importance of the ​‘Julie Mango’ in Trinidad. 

Continue reading about the recipients of the winter 2024 Individual & Collectives program, learn about the recipients of Stream 2 funding here and Stream 3 funding here.