Grantee Texts
Art Matters grantees discuss aspects of research, process and experience related to their funded activities.

Tina Takemoto
2016 Grantee
"Shimoda's legacy not only challenges traditional narratives of wartime history that emphasize heroism, masculinity, conformity, and assimilation– but also opens up space for exploring gender and sexual subversion." (Excerpt)

Troy Michie
2016 Grantee
"Having been born and raised in El Paso it was important for me to confront and reorient the current broadcast, drawing upon local signs and histories from the past to confront this present." (Excerpt)

Morgan Bassichis
2015 Grantee
"What are we doing when we sing together? Some initial ideas: We are casting spells (hexing shit, invoking shit, turning some shit into some other shit, alchemy), making speech acts, doing something somatic, physical, embodied. (Excerpt)

Garrett Bradley
2014 Grantee
"These questions lead me to focus on the people and moments in Black American history which had also become invisible and which I aimed to explore in a series of short films, American Rhapsody, some driven by narrative and others told more abstractly."(Excerpt)

Nina Katchadourian with Laurel Braitmen
2013 Grantee
"There were many thoughtful stories, some tears, and an impromptu skit of whale mating role play performed by a mother and son in our group." (Excerpt)

Nicole Awai
2012 Grantee
"If painting is not just a gesture but is a language -and is a language that I believe is not medium- specific - then in truth, the materiality of what I refer to as ‘ooze’ can be an inherently conceptual feature /directive/ charge in time, or space and place." (Excerpt)

Postcommodity
2012 Grantee
"The goal was to create a monument of futility that mocks the concept of borders, particularly, their fortification, militarization and marginalization of peoples and cultures." (Excerpt)