Congratulations Precipice Fund Grant Winners!

Big congratulations to all of the PNCA faculty, alumni, and students who were awarded Precipice Fund Grants at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. One of the things that makes PNCA special is the amount of work that students and faculty do outside of the classroom, going above and beyond, and making space and opportunity for other artists in the community. These projects are exemplary of the hard work and generosity of the PNCA community. 

Administered by the PICA as part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program, the Precipice Fund awards grants to unincorporated visual art collectives, alternative spaces, and collaborative projects in Portland, Oregon. In the program’s fourth year, $75,000 was awarded to 17 collaborative artist projects and spaces, ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 each. 

Congrats to all!

Art Writer’s Tiny Residency $5,000
PETER SIMENSKY, SAMPADA ARANKE

The Art Writer’s Tiny Residency is aimed to support and cultivate critics, theorists, and historians working in or around the field of contemporary art. This residency will provide three art writers with a short-term residency, pair these writers with Portland-based artists for studio visits or collaborations, and will culminate in a public Open Studio where each writer will showcase their work. This residency will build opportunities for dialogue and collaboration between art writers and artists. Curated by Peter Simensky and Sampada Aranke, The Art Writer’s Tiny Residency hopes to showcase writers who transgress the thin line between ‘writing’ and ‘artistic production. As curators Simensky and Aranke will curate writers who emphasize how visual and embodied art practices by queer artists and artists of color open up new forms of knowledges and sociality.

Bud Clark Commons Television $3,000
PETER FALANGA, DAVID BOSTON, DANIEL MACKIN FREEMAN, RAY MONTALBO, OLIVER NGUGI

Based out of Bud Clark Commons, BCCTV is an artist-run video production collective. The collective hosts weekly workshop series, free and open to anyone who has or is currently experiencing houselessness. BCCTV provides a platform for all involved to question the relationship between representation and class, and shares this with the public through the exhibition of a collaborative work of art. BCCTV will present a series of twelve workshops that provides an avenue to question societal divisions through collaborative video production, participatory art making, experimentation, and play. The project aims to connect audiences to this alternative pedagogy the concept of participatory aesthetics and promote agency via Self-representation.

cvllejerx $3,000
CHRISTOPHER GARCIA VALLE, ANGELICA MARIA MILLAN LOZANO, MAXIMILIANO CARLOS-RAPHAEL FRANCISCO MARTINEZ

CVLLEJERX hopes to build POC-focused community and culture in portland through fashion, poetry, performance and FPP interventions. CVLLEJERX is an inclusive, de-gendered word for ‘street people’ in spanish. The collective strives to subvert heteronormative capitalist patriarchy through their methods of upcycling. The artists describe their collaboration as “the product of multicultural in-betweenness as second generation immigrants and the violent colonization and subsequent diaspora of colombia, mexico, and africa, while dealing with the mestizx and black experiences in America.” They call out the specifically charged site for their actions “CVLLEJERX was born in the whitest city in america, Portland, a place with deep-seated white supremacist roots. With this and other historical and contemporary circumstances in mind, we feel it is urgent for us to reclaim space in this city and hope to merge fashion, performance, and poetry as a form of resistance.”

LOCUSTS: A Post-Queer Nation Zine $4,350
KEVIN HOLDEN, DEMIAN DINÉYAZHI’

LOCUSTS is a Queer zine dedicated to art, culture, literature, critique, & resurgence. The project’s focus is on amplifying the voices of queer & trans people of color & indigenous/two-spirit communities through publication & public engagement. This forthcoming zine hopes to address and challenge the current stasis in the mainstream & so-called radical queer communities. LOCUSTS embodies in all spectrums of sexuality & gender identity through small press publication and workshops. The project works to generate work that magnifies local, national, & international Queer & Trans People of Color (QTPOC) & Indigenous Queer/Two-Spirit (IQ/2S) communities whom are actively creating work through visual art, poetry/prose, critique, short stories, essays, interviews, experimental writing, concrete poetry, & various other forms of creative articulation. LOCUSTS stands to challenge hetero/homo-normative political agendas, & move away from mainstream LGBTQI2S movements that marginalize & suppress non-White histories.

Miss Anthology $4,500
MELANIE STEVENS, MACK CARLISLE, EMILY LEWIS

Miss Anthology’s mission is to support racially and economically diverse youth of the female diaspora by promoting comics as a narrative tool through hands-on workshops, and publishing their work in print and online. By introducing female and genderqueer artists and writers to the comics and the art industries, they will gain a firm understanding of the power of this alternative art practice, as well as an established network of peers within this otherwise male-dominated field. The Miss Anthology project includes a series of detailed, hands-on workshops in sequential art (comics), for female and genderqueer youth, ages thirteen to eighteen, of diverse racial, religious, and economic backgrounds in the Greater Portland Area. The collectives primary objective is to help female and genderqueer students explore this artistic and literary practice as an expression of their own perspective. This artist-centric project will culminate in the print and online publication of student artwork, with the intention of annual recurrence.

Physical Education (PE) $5,000
ALLIE HANKINS, KEYON GASKIN, TAKAHIRO YAMAMOTO, LU YIM

Physical Education (PE) is comprised of artists keyon gaskin, Allie Hankins, Lu Yim and Takahiro Yamamoto. Since 2014, PE has worked with local visual art and performance venues (s1, shortspace, FLOCK, homeschool, composition gallery) to host gatherings and curate shows in support of interdisciplinary artists while emphasizing a dialogue about performance. PE offers the contemporary artists, audiences, and curious individuals immersive modes to engage with visual art works that center around performance and performativity. PE has planned an annual program consisting of public critical and cultural theory reading and discussion groups, artist shares, performances in collaboration with invited artists from across the west coast and workshops.

Portland Filmmakers / Boathouse MicroCinema $4,500
MATT MCCORMICK, CHRIS FREEMAN

Portland Filmmakers at the Boathouse MicroCinema is a project that aims to create a temporary, non-traditional screening venue dedicated to promoting local filmmakers and fostering their surrounding community. Over the course of four months, an ambitious program of weekly screenings will survey the contemporary landscape of Portland’s film scene, screening the work of over 40 local artists in a friendly, social environment that encourages dialogue and promotes collaborative engagement. The Boathouse, a decommissioned fire-boat-station, is a long-running artist-studio collective that will be transformed into a temporary, 40-seat microcinema. The marquee program will be ‘Portland Filmmakers’, a weekly screening series that will feature the work of local film and videomakers. The series will include 16 screenings, and be a comprehensive study of Portland’s current film community, offering a diverse collection of experimental, narrative, and documentary films and their makers.

Thinking Through Photography $3,300
MELANIE FLOOD, CHELSEA CROSSETT

Thinking Through Photography is a collaborative curatorial project organized by Portland artists Melanie Flood and Chelsea Crossett and hosted at Melanie Flood Projects (MFP). The series is a comprehensive survey of contemporary photographic practices conveyed through exhibitions, artist talks, studio visits, interviews, and readings. This programming highlights experimental and diverse approaches to image making that expand the language surrounding photography, while also unveiling progressive work by local artists in the Pacific Northwest & beyond.

URe:AD TV $4,500
SHARITA TOWNE, SHANI PETERS

URe:AD TV (United Re:Public of the African Diaspora) will disseminate contemporary audiovisual works through broadcast and print by and for the African Diaspora that contribute to intra-diasporic dialogue, unity, and imagination. The collaborating artists see media as a powerful tool to be harnessed towards a self-determined diasporic collective body. URe:AD TV screenings will be marketed towards, viewed, and discussed by Black communities. Screenings will tour 5 U.S. cities, including Portland, then screen internationally in Afro-diasporic communities free of charge.