Grants for Individuals & Collectives: Stream 3 Fall 2024

Stream 3 of the Individuals & Collectives program supports artistic projects ready for implementation, production and/​or presentation. This can include support for creation, subsistence, travel and/​or mentorship. Projects may be individual or collective, and grants will be available up to $25,000 based on projected expenses, including artist subsistence. 

Fifty-four (54) applications were recommended for Stream 3, for a total investment of $1,132,743.

Ainsley Hillyard will present CAPABLE as part of Mile Zero Dance’s 2024/25 season. CAPABLE is a dance theatre piece that delves into the artist’s personal experiences as an ambitious woman navigating the constraints of a patriarchal system. 

AL and the Western Exotic collective members will produce an anthology of subversive comics and short written pieces addressing the topic of ​“taboo”.

Alison Neuman will work with theatre professionals to finalize her musical Enough for a recorded live reading. 

Angela Begin will record a debut four-song EP of original music, slated for a digital release in May 2025. 

Anna Liezl and collective members Emily Chu and Fiona Lee will host Togather Chinatown, a community arts/​cultural event that celebrates Lunar New Year. The event promotes an inclusive cultural space through the arts, with a focus on artists and cultural workers from the Chinatown/​Boyle/​McCauley area. 

Anthony Goertz will create a documentary about Edmonton’s first abortion clinic, started by a group of dedicated, fearless women against staggering odds. 

Billie Zizi will tour her record Levitate across Canada for her album release tour and will showcase the album at ​“Your Roots are Showing” in Ireland. 

Brett Dahl will première a brand-new theatrical production, Sissy Fit: Enigmacy. The multi-media drag/​theatrical hybrid production will have its initial run of performances in Edmonton at the Expanse Festival. 

Broodie will create and exhibit 10 large-scale canvas artworks highlighting the history and contributions of Black Canadians in hockey, focusing on the Coloured Hockey League of the Maritimes. 

Calla Wright will host a development workshop and progress showing of Binding, a new solo play about being trans in Alberta, in collaboration with RISER Edmonton (Common Ground Arts). 

Colin Waugh will work on the post-production phase of a 44-minute documentary about a group of Edmontonians exploring long-term ecological thinking by planting urban trees that can live over one thousand years. 

Curly travelled to Taiwan to present a lecture on graffiti titled ​“Space Junk for Aliens: Decoding the Intergalactic Language of Graffiti” at the New Taipei Youth Entrepreneurship Banqiao Art Base. 

Deepshikha Joshi will compose, rehearse and present her music in collaboration with Kuchipudi dancers and a western classical musician (Cello). The work will be presented at the Annual Vata Vriksha Festival‑A South Asian Arts Symposium between October 17 – 19, 2025. 

Dylan Toymaker will continue work on the project Lost Buoys that seeks to turn thousands of recycled/​recovered ocean buoys into large scale art installations and collectable art objects. 

Electric Religious will record a six-track album blending disco with Métis instrumentation and produce a music video featuring choreography that incorporates Métis jigging with modern dance. 

Elena Belyea will develop the fourth and fifth drafts of their play Willows in April-June 2025 through a two-week workshop with actors. 

Ellie Heath will create and produce a collection of ten original songs for her debut album, Growth Spurt, set to be released in spring 2025. 

Eric Awuah will present Paper Ships, a dance narrative and visual symphony that embodies the resilience and courage of enslaved peoples and confronts the dark moments of our shared history. 

Fern will mount a solo exhibition at the Alberta Craft Council’s Discovery Gallery in June and July of 2025. The exhibit will consist of six cohesive works, all textile explorations of the artist’s lived experience with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

Frederick Kroetsch will create a 25-minute documentary that follows the filmmaker as he learns about his Ukrainian cultural ethnicity and attempts to heal an old family wound. 

Harley Howard-Morison will create a reimagined production of his play KaldrSaga. In this production, inspired by the stories of Norse mythology, travelling storytellers Kaldr and Saga spin and reclaim queer narratives out of the stories of the gods. 

Hayley Moorhouse will produce the world première of their play Tough Guy as part of the Edmonton Fringe Theatre’s 2025/2026 Mainstage Season. Shortlisted for the 2024 Sharon Pollock Award and winner of the 2024 Westbury Family Theatre Award, Tough Guy is set in the aftermath of a shooting at a queer nightclub. 

Hemali Boorada will produce The Voices of the Unheard, a Kuchipudi dance theatre production highlighting female perspectives in Indian mythology. 

Jaime Calayo and the Free Little Art Gallery Network (Daria Hirny, Andrew Benson, Carolyn Jervis, Tikina Brownoff, Stephanie Medford, Cory John, AJA Louden, Sean Bradley) seek to develop two exhibitions and install a network of 10 small free art galleries (much like the free little library format) in front of the homes of artists on the east side of Edmonton.

Jananie will complete Laminar Flow, a musical and visual production that explores states of consciousness, incorporating styles of RnB, folk, jazz, and Indian Classical music. The album release show is set to occur at the Zeidler Dome Theatre in the Telus World of Science. 

Jessica Carmichael will complete her Young Adult novel The Full Picture, to be available for pre-orders on May 6, 2025. The project will include an audiobook; a digital marketing and branding plan; an author website; and a limited print run of 100 copies for early reviewers and proofs. 

Jessica Johns will create Cree & D: ostêsimâwasinahikêwin (Treaty), a six-episode scripted fantasy podcast series, drawing inspiration from the structure of the traditional Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) role-playing game, but reimagined with nehiyaw (Cree) characters, language, and worldviews. 

Jessy Ardern will work with choreographer Gavin Maxwell to organize a movement workshop, followed by the presentation of Persuasion, a new stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s final novel. 

John Sweenie developed a unique compositional method during his doctoral studies in jazz at McGill University, blending rhythmic patterns from literature with algorithmic processes to create modern counterpoint and transformative melodic phrases. This approach culminated in a live recording project with a quartet at the Yardbird Suite in December 2024. 

Jonathan Luckhurst will produce a book, Proposals for Reimagined Futures, that will be published by the Vancouver Biennale in 2025. Presented as text alongside conceptual images, the book contains proposals for eight large-scale public artworks that connect to food security, resource conservation, carbon sequestration and land stewardship. 

Jonathan Monfries will design and fabricate a large-scale warming hut art installation that can play host to diverse art forms, all within the footprint of a street parking stall. 

Julie Whelan will direct and produce a short film titled Please Stay that examines the changing dynamic between husband and wife as they navigate through the grief of multiple miscarriages and the social stigma of infertility. 

Kaeley Jade Wiebe will record an eight-song album in Toronto that explores the pivotal moments that change our lives. The project will push the boundaries of the alternative-folk genre while exploring themes deeply connected to identity. 

Kasie Campbell will create a series of rug-tufted sculptures drawing from her own health experiences, motherhood, and bearing witness to her late mother’s life living with chronic illness. 

Kigo Gatama and her collective members (Makeda Romanetti, Rory Turner, Amy Dass, Merlin Uwalaka, David Madawo, Mukonzi Musyoki, and Ameley Quaye) will develop and produce Hyena’s Trail, a bilingual poetic drama that reimagines classic witch trial narratives through the lens of Eastern African culture and mythology. 

Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet will produce a new body of paintings entitled Your Hands Touch Between Brambles to be presented in a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of St Albert in fall 2025. 

Kryple will record a 14-track album that represents a new creative direction in his music. The album ​“Johnny Rich” is semi-autobiographical and represents a revelation of self with new musical twists. 

Lianna Makuch will direct the Canadian première of Bomb by Ukrainian playwright Natalia Blok. The play is an exploration of mental health under pressure from political conflict, the weight of societal expectations, and the deep personal toll of activism. 

Lizzie Derksen will write the first draft of a short story collection, provisionally titled Something New.

Louise Casemore will produce and present the world première of the immersive play Lucky Charm, as part of the 2025 Found Festival. Lucky Charm draws inspiration from the true story of Bess Houdini and the events following her husband’s death. 

Mayhem 007, Andrew Dizon, Marco Caringal and Mavi Tolentino will undertake the dual task of establishing the infrastructure to ensure a long-lasting and adherent ballroom community in Edmonton, meanwhile producing the city’s first Kiki Ball in spring 2024. 

Maria Shironoshita will mount a solo exhibition at ArtsPlace Canmore, consisting of oil paintings and a mixed media sculpture. 

Mariel Buckley will complete the post-production, content creation, marketing and dissemination of her third LP that was recorded in December 2024. 

Marisa K will create Train to Lviv, a concept album exploring the complexities of the Ukrainian-Canadian identity and the search for ​“home”.

Marynia Fekecz-Mangan presented her choreographed piece Face2Face. Performed by local dance artists, Kate Stashko and Krista Lin, the piece was selected by Good Women Dance Collective for presentation at their 15^th annual production of Convergence in October 2024. 

The Misery Mountain Boys will undertake the marketing and release of a new album, Somebody Stole My Peaches. Elements of the release include commissioning design work, video production, and planning album release shows. 

Morteza Abedinifard will complete the first draft of a book that introduces Persian classical music to general audiences. The book examines Persian music by introducing its elements, contextual background, and broader cultural significance through accessible analysis paired with musical examples. 

Next Generation will create an 8 to 12 foot Queen Mas titled ​“Money Teif” that embodies Guyanese Mashramani folklore. 

Sue Huff and the Women’s Script Writing Circle will hold monthly meetings to encourage and support women writers and raise awareness about the gender inequity in all forms of scripts (TV, Film, Theatre) and how this severely limits the stories we all hear and see. The collective will also host a showcase in June 2025. 

Tai Amy Grauman will develop her play Wiwimaw which tells the untold story of the Callihoo women within Alberta. The scope of the project involves a two-week development period in Edmonton with workshop presentations at the Citadel Theatre and at Métis Crossing. 

The Prairie States will promote the release of their next two singles with high quality music videos, shot and produced in Alberta by Edmonton-based professionals.

Tom Van Seters will record an album of original music featuring a roster of professional musicians from Edmonton. The album is expected to be released in June 2025. 

Yegfilm (Adam Bentley and Paula Kirman) will complete post-production on No Secret Monuments, a feature-length documentary featuring Kirman as she ventures to the Baltic states and Finland, exposing secret Nazi monuments. 

Zsofia Opra-Szabo will complete the post-production of a demo video and accompanying pitch package for a mixed stop motion and shadow animation feature film Behind the Pain(T).

Continue reading about the recipients of the fall 2024 Individual & Collectives program on the blog. Learn about the recipients of Stream 1 funding here and Stream 2 funding here.

Interested in applying for the Winter 2025 Individuals & Collectives grant? The next deadline is February 18, 2025 at 11:59 AM (noon). Applicants are invited to join the Edmonton Arts Council for interactive Q&A sessions on January 29 and February 5 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM at the Prince of Wales Armouries (10440 108 Avenue). These session will focus on addressing eligibility, guidelines, and the online application process in a group discussion format. Learn more about the information sessions here.