Precipice Fund Round 11 Grant Recipients

Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) is pleased to announce the grant recipients of Round 11 of the Precipice Fund, administered by PICA as part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program. Established in 2013, the Precipice Fund supports unincorporated, collaborative visual art projects, programs, and spaces in and around Portland, Oregon, with grants of up to $5,000 each.

Totaling 13 projects, 37 individual artists, and $61,100 in distributed funding, Round 11 grantees represent the range and diversity of contemporary artists and experimental art practices in our local region. Funded projects include exhibitions, publications, curatorial projects, workshops and educational series, critical and creative writing, video art, online content, live events, and community art programs. Some projects are intended for the general public, while others serve and/or center specific audiences and communities, including students at the Dr. MLK Jr. School; Black natural hair practitioners and their clientele; survivors of war, genocide, and violence; QTBIPOC creatives; trans artists; disabled and/or neurodivergent artists; descendants of emigrants from Eastern Europe; feminist horror fans; multilingual food lovers; and Portland’s underground club scene. All projects are collaborative, and grantees have one year to execute their project.

The Round 11 grantees were selected by an external review panel of local and non-local artists and arts workers. This year’s panel included: Elisheba Johnson, artist and curator (Seattle, WA); Molly Alloy, artist, accomplice, and museum nerd (Portland, OR); and cay horiuchi, artist, DJ, and co-founder of UωU collective (Portland, OR).

The following PICA staff oversee Precipice Fund programming and operations:

Roya Amirsoleymani, PICA Artistic Director & Curator of Public Engagement

Kristan Kennedy, PICA Artistic Director & Curator of Visual Art

Madison Hames, Precipice Fund Administrator

GRANTEES

A | $4,000

Abby Castillo, Nzinga Valentine

A series of videos: two pieces of video art and two music videos from the 2022 abbymachines album A. The videos will play with the relationship of language to transgender identity through the motif of the letter “A.”

Community School | $5,000

Jade Novarino, Alix Jo Ryan, Margarita Reyes

Community School is a network of artists, farmers, educators, and cooks working together to make shows and publications, host workshops and classes, and run food programming, all within the context of a communal home and a 1/2 acre farm. We believe in bridging agriculture, education, language, and nourishment for a more holistic approach to experiencing art.

CORVID-19: Protection for the Next Plague | $5,000

Ed Bourgeois, Timothy White Eagle

Four Indigenous/mixed-race creatives will collaborate to develop a public exhibition of works centering found objects, reused and natural materials, installed space, and embodied curation in an exploration of audience expectations, community and belonging, and the active rebuilding of identity through interactive, mixed-medium storytelling. The project, CORVID-19: Protection for the Next Plague, will incorporate these themes into medicine objects installed on earth-based, temporary altars in Portland public spaces for human audiences and our non-human (crow) kin.

Crossing the Redline/ Black Beyond Black History Month | $5,000

Jon Wykoff, Kenyahta Sikes, Bobby Fouther, Liz Fouther-Branch

PDX Suite Spot, Bobby Fouther, and Liz Fouther-Branch have partnered to create two powerful visual art exhibits recovering the untold stories of Black life in Old Town at the turn of the 20th century, present day, and the future. Crossing the Redline and Black Beyond Black History Month will give us a glimpse of Black life and culture through the eyes of a few local Black multigenerational artists.

HI-VIZ | $4,600

Kye Kauffman, Mo Geiger, Caryn Aasness, Aggy Hosey, Alex Montford

HI-VIZ is a social practice art project working with the student crossing guards of the Dr. MLK Jr. School 5th Grade Safety Patrol. Through monthly visual, performing, and interdisciplinary arts workshops, we explore the crosswalk as a stage for creative expression and civic agency. This series of workshops builds skills and understanding that will culminate in our end-of-the-year public, participatory pedestrian parade, the Hi-Vizibility Crosswalk Spectacular.

Kitchen | $5,000

Kiara Walls, Paola De La Cruz, Nia Johnson

Kitchen explores the relationship between hair and intimacy while centering the experiences of Black clientele and natural hair practitioners. The project will celebrate stories told by Black voices to archive the oral histories surrounding the physical space, care, and intimacy that is cultivated through hair styling. Kitchen will provide artistic form to the processes of this culture by sharing the perspectives of clients and beauticians while recognizing the historical/political context surrounding this specific experience.

Kodes | $4,000

Aleksandr Chernousov, Olga Maksakova

The community-based art zine, Kodes, is aimed at heritage speakers. This laboratory is for the descendants of emigrants from Eastern Europe in search of their cultural identity. The laboratory provides several spots for participants interested in immigrant communities’ culture. The task of this project is to employ the techniques of documentary theater (verbatim) and comics (as mediums of visual storytelling) to find cultural codes and practice them for their lives in the present-day world.

Lupinus | $5,000

Olivia Camfield, Woodrow Hunt

Lupinus is an experimental horror film based on the concept of Indigenous Revenge. Lupinus is set and filmed in Portland. The theory is based on Indigenous feminist revenge, horror, Deer Woman, psychological thriller, and justice. Indigenous peoples are bombarded with violent images and stories that portray us as victims. This project is being made to address the violence experienced by our kin without relying on the portrayal of Indigenous people as victims who cannot fight back.

PDX Ballroom Revival Workshop Series | $5,000

The House of Flora

The House of Flora is a Portland-founded artist collective and Ballroom Kiki House. We aim to revitalize and reinvigorate the Portland Ballroom community by inviting and hosting artists of Ballroom to teach a series of workshops in Portland. Each session will be filmed and captured in pictures to preserve the wisdom shared. These workshops will inspire, educate, and cultivate the artistic expression of QTBIPOC individuals in Portland, across the Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

Provecho Magazine | $5,000

Kyle Yoshioka, Heldáy de la Cruz, Emilie Chen

Provecho Magazine is a multilingual publication by and for BIPOC about the foods we love. Via intimate conversations, recipes, and photography, we tell stories about identity. Provecho Magazine is an opportunity for us to revel in the beauty of food as an anchor to ancestral pride, a means of fostering well-being through the sharing of meals, and an expression of love.

Rabbit Moon | $5,000

Porsche Ing, Dr. Jeudi Boulom, Vivienne Tang

Cultural Art event ‘Rabbit Moon: Field of Dreams,’ shines exquisite light showcasing Tao Practitioners Dr. Jeudi Boulom D.C., Vivienne Tang, microbiologist, and Porsche Ing, M.P.H., each empowered by Dr. and Grandmaster Sha, founder of Tao Calligraphy. Their brave and compassionate mission is to transform deep negative emotional and mental traumas from war, cultural violence, and suffering via breakthrough art, cultural song and dance, and real-life sharing of the historic and traumatic Killing Fields experience.

The Disabled Artists Project and Exhibition | $5,000

Alexis Neumann, Marie Connor

The Disabled Artists Exhibition and Project is a dedicated space to create discussion about and explore all of the aspects of disability, critically engaging with the disability community, Disability Studies, and the community at large. Disabled artists rarely get to define their own narrative and create work specifically engaging their disability. This project creates the space to speak authentically about disability and not have to cater to an audience that wants to be inspired.

Vision World Presents: Unity Consciousness Rave | $3,500

Jasmine Beach, Morgan Haigh, Hasmood

The ethos of our project rests upon the intersection of urban degradation in a technocratic society, and a one size fits all nightlife economy; under the principle of Unity Consciousness, we strive to create a sonically driven, immersive, inclusive club experience that prioritizes harm reduction. Together, our cultural awareness is bound by Portland’s underground club scene, and our collective response is an inherent need to make space for a new, deliberate point of view.