Past Mini-Grant Awardees
We’re honored to award Vairea Tupana Samn (@tanerai_i_nia) with a Mini-Grant in support of her Tahitian dance group. As the group rehearses and prepares to compete in the 2025 Kiki Raina Tahiti Fete dance competition, Vairea will be using the Mini-Grant to purchase materials from Tahiti to hand-sew 20 costumes. Born & raised in Tahiti (French Polynesia), Vairea is indigenous Ma’ohi craftswoman who specializes in traditional weaving & Tahitian dance costume designs. She began dancing at age 4 & continued to learn & perform with her family’s church, Tiroama.
In 2009, Vairea did her first Heiva i Tahiti with the legendary troupe Kei Tawhiti. After, she went on to dance with Nohoarii, Ahutoru Nui, Tamariki Oparo, Pupu Tuha’a Pae, Tefana i Ahura’i, Heikura Nui & Tere’ori. Vairea has also worked as part of the costume teams for big groups such as Hei Tahiti, Nuna’a E Hau & Toahiva. In 2017, she moved to California & opened the USA’s 1st Tahitian Cultural Center (Tanera’i i Ni’a) which focuses on helping groups with their costumes, presentation themes, language translation & cultural education.
In 2018, Vairea also co-established Tama Toa Nui, the USA’s 1st & only all-male Tahitian dance troupe. As of July 2024, she is leading a group of 18 performers & 12 musicians to prepare to enter the Kiki Raina Tahiti Fete Dance Competition in March 2025. Her dream is continue sharing the indigenous values of her Ma’ohi ancestors through dance, language & music.
We’re pleased to award Vreni Michelini Castillo (@chhotimaa) with a Mini-Grant to fund rehearsals with her collaborators as they prepare for their upcoming performance at SFJazz.
Vreni Michelini Castillo aka Chhoti Maa, is a multidisciplinary cultural producer, curator, danzante and educator from Mexico. She is the editor of Color Theory (2019), creator of Fluid Mutualism (2021), co-founder of Aguas Migrantes, an artist collective that runs programming in Mexico. Her teaching incorporates critical race theory, ecofeminism, hip hop, decoloniality and traditional Mexican medicine into various craft & art practices. Her upcoming musical performance features 5 other LGBTQ+ musicians from diverse migrant backgrounds.
Image credit: Elizabeth Michelini Franco
Congratulations to Shabnam Piryaei (@shabnampiryaei) for receiving our Mini-Grant in support of her film No Separate Survival. Described by the San Francisco Book Review as “a force to be reckoned with in literary circles,” Shabnam Piryaei is an award-winning poet, playwright, media artist, and filmmaker. She’s written four books: all children. (Diode Editions, 2024), Nothing is Wasted (The Operating System, 2017), Forward (Museum Books, 2014) and Ode to Fragile (Plain View Press, 2010). Her films have screened at film festivals, art galleries, and public installations around the world. She recently completed a documentary film entitled No Separate Survival about asylum seekers across the U.S.-Mexico border. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and teaches at San Francisco State University. She is the founder and curator of the online art and interview journal MUSEUM. Her art has been exhibited at the Unlike Art Gallery, Elysium Art Gallery, New Gallery London, Youyou Gallery, Jotta, Galleria Perelà, Kala Art Institute, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
We are honored to award Beatriz Escobar (@biaescobar) in support of “Diasporic Oceanness,” a site-specific workshop series in collaboration with local immigrant artists. Beatriz Escobar works with participatory art projects, relational objects, and the body, engaging decolonial imaginaries and examining the experience of otherness. Originally from São Paulo, Brasil, she is interested in the tensions arising from the consumption of tropical resources, culture, and bodies by The Global North and is constantly entangling herself and the audience in constructed and shifting power dynamics. She is a co-founder of the useless initiatives collective (2018 – 2022) and of Ecotones, a platform for site-specific work in natural landscapes by artists of color. Her individual and collaborative works have been shown and performed at Southern Exposure, CounterPulse, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 18th Street Arts Center (Los Angeles). She was a recipient of the CCA Impact Awards for her project Amazonas Riverine Program, and a 2019 Community Engagement Fellow at Destiny Arts.
Congratulations to Jun Yang (@junyarts) for receiving our Mini-Grant in support of his new soft sculptural works! Jun Yang, a self-taught artist from Seoul, now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home after 14 years. His paintings, murals, and textile sculptures draw inspiration from his childhood traumas, healing journey, experiences of grief, the Queer immigrant experience, and cultural shock. Also inspired by the city of San Francisco, its rich cultural diversity and supportive queer community. Jun combines his art with activism, reflecting his personal journey and advocating for LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights by celebrating inclusivity and solidarity he has found in San Francisco while exposing ongoing struggles.
Yang is the 2024 SECA nominee by SFMOMA, recipient of SFAC Visual Art Grant and selected artist at Public Works artist in residence. His first museum solo exhibition is on view at Bakersfield Museum of Art. His works have been displayed at Senator Scott Wiener’s Office, and Consulate General of The Republic of Korea. He has also exhibited in De Young museum, MOCA Taipei, Kuandu Biennale and Kunsthaus Graz in Austria.
Visit Jun’s website to learn more about his work: https://www.junyangart.com/
We are honored to award Shruti Abhishek (@shruti_abhishek) in support of her project “Art Echoes.” Shruti is an Indian dancer, choreographer, and teacher practicing Bharatanatyam. In 2018, Shruti founded Kshetram, an intergenerational dance institution based in Livermore and Pleasanton, CA. A direct response to her growing knowledge about dance, culture, appropriation, tradition, and embodiment, Kshetram helps keep Indian traditions alive in California (and beyond) while offering space to reflect on how Indian traditions continue to transform, evolve, and grow with each new generation. In addition to her own company and solo performances, Shruti is a Principal Dancer and Rehearsal Director at Nava Dance Theatre.
She initiated the Art Echoes Series to inspire and educate kids through live performances. The series provides a unique opportunity for young audiences to learn, be inspired, and engage with the artists in candid conversations about their practice. By attending these performances, kids can expand their horizons, gain a deeper appreciation of the arts, and develop their creativity.
Visit Shruti’s website to learn more about her work, www.shruti abhishek.dance.
Congratulations to Judit Navratil (@juditnavratil) for receiving our Mini-Grant in support of her multimedia project “Szívküldi Lakótelep.” Judit Navratil is a transdisciplinary artist working with social VR and extended reality in balance with her embodied practices like somersaulting and tent flying. As an immigrant in various cultures, she explores the potential of phygital care and belonging in compossible spaces.
Navratil earned an MFA in Painting at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2008 and an MFA at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2019. She has exhibited in Hungary, Canada, France, Korea, and the Bay Area. Her work has been recognized through the Cadogan Art Award, a Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris) residency, and the Parent Award of Kala Art Institute. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and an Alternative Exposure grantee as the founder-mother of VR Art Camp.
Learn more about her work at www.juditnavratil.com and www.vrartcamp.net
Abdul Hakim Karimzada, born in 1972 in Afghanistan, is a DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) and master calligrapher, who has over 30 years experience in different types of calligraphy and fine writing such as traditional and modern scripts. He started calligraphy in Herat Province of Afghanistan by learning different writing styles including Nastaliq, Kofie, Naskh and Thuluth scripts. He went on to create over thousands of works by using these scripts. He is the senior member of Herat Calligraphy Association’s board and also the trainer of calligraphy for this association.
We’re excited to award Andreína Maldonaldo AKA Nina Limón (@ninalimonart @bienstar.consulting) with our April 2023 Mini-Grant, to support “Nuestro Trabajo, Nuestra Dignidad,” a theatrical production created in collaboration with immigrant domestic workers, day laborers, musicians, and artists in the San Francisco Mission District.
ANDREÍNA MALDONADO aka Nina Limón is a Venezuelan interdisciplinary performing artist whose socially engaged work disrupts dominant narratives about labor.
Learn more about her work at www.bienstar.biz.
We’re excited to award Papo Rebolledo (@parchitastudios) with our February 2023 Mini-Grant, to support their moving work in documenting QTBIPOC joy in our communities!
Papo Rebolledo is an Afro-Caribbean multidisciplinary artist from Venezuela. They enjoy photography, filmmaking, painting, and sculpture. They are passionate about documenting queer and trans people surviving and thriving in hopes of uplifting them and emboldening them to feel confident and assertive. Papo’s artwork also explores the connection with nature, and personal and social issues such as poverty, systemic racism, and forced displacements.
Learn more about their work at parchitastudios.com.
Join us in congratulating ARTogether’s June Mini-Grant recipient, Chetna Mehta (@creationforliberation)!
Chetna Mehta is a granddaughter of Indian and South African diasporas. Their training, education and experiences span social sciences, counseling psychology, yoga philosophy and practice from a liberation-oriented perspective, cultural exchange, leadership and mentorship, somatics, mixed media and expressive healing arts, ceremony and ritual, and cultivating peaceful circles.
Visit Chetna’s website at www.mosaiceyeunfolding.com to learn more about her work.
Congratulations to ARTogether’s May Mini-Grant recipient, Anita Sulimanovic!
Anita Sulimanovic is a visual artist and educator whose practice is based on articulating a chaotic world of abandoned and found materials. She was born and raised in Croatia and studied sculpture at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts and the Edinburgh College of Art, moving
between fifteen different locations before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Visit Anita’s website at www.anitasulimanovic.com to learn more about her work!
Congratulations to ARTogether’s March Mini-Grant recipient, Ariam Weldeab Araya (@ariam_weldeab)!
Ariam Weldeab Araya is an Eritrean award-winning author, film director, poet, narrator, and television host. She has written several short stories, poems, and dramas. Over the past decade, she has worked in a wide variety of professional capacities from private to national radio and television, and has achieved many awards. Thus far, Ariam has written and directed three films and three sketch dramas.
Visit Ariam’s website at ariamweldeab.com to learn more about her work!
Congratulations to ARTogether’s March Mini-Grant recipient, Badri Valian (@badrivalian)!
Badri is a participatory interactive installation artists and a painter living in the Bay Area. She studied Fine Arts back in her home country, Iran, where she received several national awards for her creative techniques. Badri’s artwork investigates personal and social issues such as poverty, systemic racism, sexual assault, and forced displacements.
Visit Badri’s website badrivalian.com to learn more about her work.
Congratulations to ARTogether’s mini-grant recipient for January, Nivedita Rajendra! (@nivi_noo)!
Niv Rajendra is a socially engaged artist and Ayurvedic Practitioner. Through her work she explores how the renewal and reinstatement of Indigenous spiritual knowledge can repair damaged relationships in human communities; between humans and the land; and between living and non-living entities. Originally from New Delhi and Mangalore, India, she has lived and worked across the world, and is currently based in Huichin, Oakland.
Visit Niv’s website nivrajendra.com to learn more about her work.
Congratulations to ARTogether’s mini-grant recipient for January, Christina Xu (@christinaxu_)!
Christina is a Taiwanese-Pacific islander, first generation American. In her role as an artist, she highlights the beauty that already exists, and she paints to represent her culture and community.
This year, Xu will be painting 22 murals in 22 Bay Area schools (#22muralsin2022) as a direct response to the unprecedented times our children have faced recently.
Visit Christina’s website christinaxu.art to learn more about her work
ARTogether’s mini-grant recipient for October is Juliana Mendonca! Juliana is a Venezuelan contemporary performer, choreographer and teacher.
Juliana will use the funds from the mini-grant for her project, Liquidanza. Liquidanza is a dance form practiced in water created by Juliana Mendonca. Liquidanza offers unique explorations of movement and dance in and out of water using specific techniques that prepare participants to feel the fluidness of their bodies.
Visit Juliana’s instagram page, @juliana_mendonca_dance to learn more about her work.
We are happy to announce that our September Mini-Grant recipient is the musical group Inti Batey (@inti.batey). The San Francisco based group is composed of musicians and artists originally from Mexico, SF, Guatemala, Venezuela, Argentina among other places.
“In a time of exacerbated isolation and lonely digital screens, the age of longing for community support and warmth our ancestors had felt more present that ever in us, and it birthed ‘Inti Batey,’ Sun Gathering. Our intention now is to share not only the stream of music that so effortlessly flowed from our collective, but also to express our gratitude by inviting our audience to be a part of the healing space in respect and friendship.”
Congratulations to Gazelle Samizay for receiving the August ARTogether Mini-Grant Award for Bi-Lingering, a collaborative project with artist Labkhand Olfatmanesh.
“Bi-Lingering” represents that in-between space where one belongs to two (or more) languages and cultures. This project invites people to share their experiences of expressing themselves in more than one language by writing a letter to “Dear Bi-Lingering” in whatever language (or mix of languages) they feel comfortable with. The artists hope to use the mini-grant award for supplies related to mailing the kits to and from participants.
Visit the Bi-Lingering.com to learn more about both artists.
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Congratulations to ARTogether’s July mini-grant recipient, artist and filmmaker, Ray Koh!
Koh’s most recent project involves a large-scale photo essay of a legendary and struggling business of San Francisco’s Chinatown, Hing Lung Company. Influenced by the continued escalation of Asian hate in Northern California, his project brings to light the importance of fusing on the communities affected by growing hate and discrimination. Koh will be using ARTogether’s Mini-Grant to support and produce his latest project, using the award to fund equipment rentals, transportation and artist proofing.
Visit raykoh.com to learn more about the artist.
June’s mini- grant recipient is Bay Area textile artist, dani lopez. Lopez works with weaving and fiber sculpture to explore queer desire, femininity and femme identity.
For lopez, weaving at the loom, sewing, and embroidery act as a portal site to reimagine her closeted queer youth into an out loud one. Pop music, lesbian bars, camp, and pop culture serve as research for her practice. The funds from this mini-grant will be used for materials and documentation for her series, Dykes on the Dancefloor. Lopez received her MFA in Textiles from CCA and her BFA from the University of Oregon.
Visit the danilopez.us to learn more.
Allison von Hausen and Divija Mohan are the mini-grant recipients this May for their short film, When the Crow Calls.
This short film focuses on mental health and the de-stigmatization of therapy within the South-Asian community. Mohan’s own experiences with mental health, grief and loss, compelled her to write the short film. With this mini-grant, Von Hausen and Mohan hope to rent equipment, feed their crew and create a film that resonates with the Asian diaspora and shatters long-held ideas about seeking help for mental health.
Read more about the project here.
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April’s mini-grant recipient is Palija Shrestha, a painter from Kathmandu, Nepal currently based in San Francisco, CA. Palija has a MFA from California College of the Arts.
Her work investigates and navigates politics in response to her, her mother’s and her grandmothers’ experiences that related to a cosmic longing for survival. She will use the mini-grant fund to buy supplies for her Tikijhya, traditional newari window, series. The series aims to convey that we can dream beyond and imagine a higher place, a more hopeful survival.
Check out her work and learn more about the artist here.
Kacy Jung is the March recipeint of ARTogether’s mini-grant for artists. Kacy Jung is a Taiwanese visual artist, based in San Francisco, working with photography, photo-sculpture, and site-specific installation. Much of her work is concerned with the way identity is constructed and reassembled during socialization.
ARTogether’s mini-grant will help Kacy create an online platform and expand the physical presence for her ongoing photography and interview project, 21 Grams – The Weight of Souls. The project aims to create an extensive catalog of faces and their untold stories of battling the mainstream capitalist system that pressures individuals to move away from the arts.
Learn more about the artist here.
Sunroop Kaur (@loquacious_lines) is a visual artist originally from Calgary, Alberta, with a B.F.A from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, 2019. She uses her practice as a vessel to transport critical conversations about identity, race, gender, culture, and inherited art histories.
As a first-generation Indo-Canadian who has never visited India, Kaur struggles with the layered complexity of her own identity and feelings of displacement. Currently Kaur is working on a series of works that makes references to both Eastern and Western art traditions borrows from the rich textile history of Punjab and Phulkari work.
Learn more about the artist here.
In partnership with CiNEOLA and Frameline, ARTogether has awarded its January mini-grant to Oakland artist Sen Mendez’s (@sencreatesart) workshop series Y(our) Legacy, a visual workshop series for the Bay Area Latinx immigrant community.
The grant will support a visual workshop series created by Mendez, which will be offered free of charge to the Bay Area’s immigrant Latinx community. Titled the Y(our) Legacy series, Mendez describes the workshop as “a block printing movement between mental illness and block printing to end cycles of harmful behaviors imprinted unto us by creating our own imprints.” The workshop will be a 10 week series aimed to assist participants in their journey of self growth and recovery.
November’s mini-grant winner is Victor Castro, the talent behind Shamanic Labs, an exciting art studio from West Oakland.
“We are mega excited to win this grant, and have a great concept to create a brand new type of ‘board game’ meets artistic centerpiece,” Victor tells us. “This art experience is replete with hints, symbols and elements to remind us of how special and important the human journey is. We need this reminder more than ever, in 2020! You are worth it! Play this game! It will remind you why we are here! To make friends and play with your toys and make cool stuff!”
Check out Victor’s amazing work on shamaniclabs.com.
Born and raised in Iran, Somaieh Amini (@somaieh_amini) got her start at as an artist at animation studios. She moved to Italy in 2009 to do her Master’s in Painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, and discovered her love of illustration. In 2012, Somaieh moved again, this time to the United States.
These relocations have had an emotional impact on Somaieh’s artistic life. After moving to the United States, it took her 3 years to start her artistic career. However, it was also then that she came realized anew that painting and illustration and what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Relocation has also impacted the themes of her work, which often cover subjects of immigration, home, the refugee experience and war.
ARTogether’s very first mini-grant is awarded to multimedia storyteller Edward Gunawan and his collaborator and brother, Elbert Lim, creators of the webcomic Project: Press Play!
A personal journey about struggling with mental health, Project: Press Play is a poignant and beautifully told story, and has already been translated into three languages. ARTogether’s mini-grant will allow the creators to translate the comic into Thai, Bahasa Indonesia and Spanish, and to reimagine the webcomic as a video.
Read the full comic at projectpressplay.com.
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