2023

In an effort to support innovative artist projects throughout the St. Louis region, The Luminary selected ten projects to receive grant funding in the fifth round of our Futures Fund Grant Program. Supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation For the Arts, a total of $60,000 in grants will be awarded, with individual grants ranging between $2,500 and $8,000.

This year’s cycle of Futures Fund aims to uplift and support projects that embody the ethos of life-sustaining ideas that nourish the cultural ecologies of St. Louis. Futures Fund was founded in 2019 to provide essential support to projects that engage with the city’s past, present, and possible future. Additionally, the Fund was developed as an opportunity for artists with local ties to give life to the St. Louis art community. As the city evolves, the grant will help demonstrate that art within St. Louis can help address pressing issues of our time and be approachable to a broad audience of many publics.

Grant recipients were chosen by a panel of judges, including Brian Lathan (Artist & Educator), Misa Jeffereis (Assistant Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum), John Riepenhoff (Founder and Director, The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI) for final selection.

Awarded finalists and their projects vary in styles and artistic approach and outcomes. The projects occupy locations throughout the St. Louis region including South St. Louis, East St. Louis, North St. Louis, and North St. Louis County, virtual spaces, and other areas.

GRANTEES

JPA Public Programming | $8000

Misato Pang and Jacob Janes

Our project provides free art programming for the general public of St. Louis that includes bi-monthly lectures (both in-person and virtual) and seasonal workshops. The lectures consist of an hour-long, in-depth exploration of an artist’s body of work and conceptual interests followed by Q & A from the audience. The series will inform viewers about the landscape of the contemporary art world and provide exposure for the presenting artists.

Mosaic Pothole Project | $3000

Lu Ray Waldemer

Potholes are dangerous, annoying, and never seem to get filled. St. Louis has fluctuating temperatures and a small city budget, so big holes and cracks are a constant issue. As an artist and biker I want to slowly solve this problem with art by filling in the cracks with pockets of joy. How? Guerrilla ceramic mosaic installations.

MO Hoes in StL | $8000

Grace C. Smith

MO Hoes in StL plan to host an art exhibition and opening night ball at a St. Louis venue (TBD) featuring artworks by Missouri sex workers and Black trans people, as well as a portrait series of Black trans/queer ballroom legends with accompanying catalog featuring an archive of the works and interviews with the subjects of the portrait series, to uplift and document the integral creative achievements of Black trans, queer, and sex working communities in the region.

The Midwest Art Quarterly | $7878

Sam Jennings and Troy Sherman

MAQ is an experiment in serious art criticism in a place (the Midwest) and a time (the dragging sixth decade of neoliberal aesthetics) where and when there's a dearth of it. MAQ aims to provide comprehensive critical engagement with the visual art that is exhibited in St. Louis — whether at major institutions or independent venues. The publication was founded on the belief that any healthy, productive artistic ecosystem requires commensurately rigorous critical engagement

Bunkers at The National Building Arts Center | $5000

Sage Dawson and Bruce Burton and Allison Lacher

STNDRD, a site-based and artist-run curatorial and exhibition initiative, aspires to develop an ongoing, experimental, and ambitious exhibition program that centers on the use of two large, vacant casting bunkers that reside on the industrial campus of the National Building Arts Center (NBAC) in Sauget, Illinois. The bunkers are raw concrete spaces that offer unique historical context, architectural features, and geographic identities that artists can respond to through site-specific inquiry.

Duplicator Magazine | $5044

Sophia Malone and Daniel Madrigal

Duplicator Magazine by MelonPress is an anthology style, visual arts magazine that features artists from the St. Louis area. It utilizes the screen print-esque style of Risograph printing to bring a unique, dynamic, and distinct look to the collective work. Duplicator is not only a magazine, but a community of artists and a biannual snapshot of the St. Louis arts community.

Cementland Archive | $6500

Daniil Gerasimov

Cementland Archive will facilitate an online community archive and print a zine, investigating the social, cultural, and environmental histories of Cementland — a former factory turned public art project and abandoned urban explorer destination. The archive will bring together Riverview residents, Cementland visitors, local researchers, and artists in inter-expertise memory work and futuring, while the largely pictorial zine will offer a reading of the archive, politicizing Cementland’s aesthetics and activating the catalog.

StL Art + Labor Peoples Campaign | $7155

Miriam Ruiz and Colin McLaughlin

STL Art + Labor Campaign is a collaboration between Facilitators Miriam and Colin, and members of union Locals around StL to create three poster campaigns with the aim of bringing awareness to the general populace of the labor movement, both presently and historically, nationally and locally. While the outdoor posters are temporary, the designs will live on via a website to inspire similar projects.

Frame StL: Framing Fundamentals | $5300

Jessie Donovan

"Frame STL - Framing Fundamentals" is a free workshop series held in collaboration with Cherokee Street Tool Library that teaches visual artists how to frame their own artwork while fostering an environment for continued learning. The workshops will offer personalized guidance and hands-on instruction to ensure that artists of all backgrounds and skill levels can leave with one of their works custom framed, and feel empowered to continue to frame independently.

Wildfruit Projects | $4123

Kentaro Kumanomido and Nate Lucena

Wildfruit Projects is an queer-led project space dedicated to building community through exhibitions and events. Located in Dutchtown, South Saint Louis, Wildfruit serves as an anchor for queer and queer-allied creatives throughout the region, providing a safe and welcoming environment for the expression of artistic ambition, multidimensional healing, and reconnection with nature through its curated backyard.

Over this project period (June 2023-March 2024), Wildfruit aims to host six month-long exhibitions and two pop-up exhibitions for a total of eight curated art events over ten months + a symposium on queer art at the end of the project period. We hope to involve 3 guest-curators during this time and to include a mix of solo and group shows. We also hope to showcase non-local artists as well as continue to support local makers and creatives.

2022

In an effort to support innovative artist projects throughout the St. Louis region, The Luminary selected nine applicants to receive grant funding in fourth round of our Futures Fund Grant Program. Supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation For the Arts, a total of $60,000 in grants will be awarded, with individual grants ranging between $2,500 and $8,000.

This year’s cycle of Futures Fund aims to uplift and support projects that embody the ethos of life-sustaining ideas that nourish the cultural ecologies of St. Louis. Futures Fund was founded in 2019 to provide essential support to projects that engage with the city’s past, present, and possible future. Additionally, the Fund was developed as an opportunity for artists with local ties to give life to the St. Louis art community. As the city evolves, the grant will help demonstrate that art within St. Louis can help address pressing issues of our time and be approachable to a broad audience of many publics.

Grant recipients were chosen by a panel of judges, including José Garza (Artist & Educator, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum), Jessica Baran (Independent Curator & Arts Writer), Cierra Rembert (Artist Initiatives Coordinator, SPACES, Cleveland, OH) for final selection.

Awarded finalists and their projects vary in styles and artistic approach and outcomes. The projects occupy locations throughout the St. Louis region including South St. Louis, East St. Louis, North St. Louis, and North St. Louis County, virtual spaces, and other areas.

GRANTEES

Beside Between Beyond | $5000

Sukanya Mani 

In Beside Between Beyond, Sukanya Mani will bring awareness to the prevalence of domestic violence(DV), with a focus on immigrant and refugee communities by creating an art installation based on knowledge from data and interviews. Beside Between Beyond utilizes resources from the Futures Fund to support creation of an interactive site specific installation; an educational component through a series of panels and discussions that highlight specific challenges within these communities and illustrate culturally sensitive design solutions; a community project where she will invite victims of abuse, advocates and community members to contribute to a traveling mural that can be displayed at each of the locations; a video documentation that will record the entire process, some interviews, creation of the artwork and traveling exhibit. 

Boost the Block | $6500

Destini Clark

Boost the Block is a creative network that highlights and celebrates the creativity of black businesswomen in St. Louis by designing specialized photoshoots for each subject. They focus on highlighting 5 women a year by creating unique visual storytelling to personally boost them, their brand, and income. Clark will use the funds to create an Expo for her project.

Divine Daughters of Dinkanesh (D3) | $8000

Tiara Burtin and Lilja Michaud

The First Generation of The Divine Daughters (or D3) of Dinkanesh is envisioned as a collective for women in St. Louis who are ready to journey into healing for the purpose of moving wounded feminine energy out of the collective body, through research, movement, and visual art.

Four Seasons Mural at 3408 South Compton Avenue | $8000

Edo Rosenblith

In the fall of 2021, the Cherokee Street Community Improvement District selected Rosenblith to create a large-scale mural at 3408 South Compton Ave that honors the diverse artist community that has and continues to enrich the social fabric of Cherokee Street. The area directly surrounding the mural site has played a significant role in the development of many artists of a variety of disciplines throughout the years. This one block was at one time home to many art spaces that housed zine libraries, published books, poetry series, film screenings, symposiums, fundraisers, drag shows, and print fairs. With so much history on this one block, Rosenblith wants to make a mural that honors the very artist and performers who played a part in this collective cultural history. Additional funding from the Futures Fund allows him to retrofit this mural for longevity, pay subjects of the work, and support resources for storage and materials.

Free Press Project | $5000

Brian Lathan

Free Press Project afford affords local artists access to printmaking and distribution of their work without the common barriers of cost, labor, and skill to do so. This year’s continuation has an emphasis on expanding the collective’s techniques and mediums, and to make the project even more accessible by serving the community in several new locations.

Her Eminent Reign (H.E.R) | $3500

Myrina Otey

H.E.R. is a multi-women led visual project series that highlights women of color whose accomplishments and achievements have been forgotten, yet paving the way for women and artists like us to succeed and create today. We curate teams of black women who are experts in their field to execute beautiful visual displays and re-enactments of these figtHERs to honor them. H.E.R. will use the Futures Fund to create a book of photographs that document the project and highlights its mission.

St. Louis Smolnet | $8000

Eden Attar

Attar will use the funds to create the Smolnet, a decentralized, artist-run internet in St. Louis. While the material on the internet is accessible globally, material on the smolnet will only be accessible in a 30-100 foot range. This initial installment of the smolnet will consist of five exhibitions across the city, hosting multimedia and digital artwork. They hope this project will invite people to participate in a non-commercial network and demonstrate the possibilities of alternative and artistic infrastructures. 

“The Story of Greenwood Cemetery in St. Louis” | $8000

LaCreshia Griffin-Pope

Griffin-Pope’s feature film, The Story of Greenwood Cemetery in St. Louis, tells the story and significance of one of the oldest Black cemeteries in Saint Louis, the struggle to restore and maintain it, and the importance of preserving its history.

“The Tower” | $8000

Sydney Tischler and Tobi Owolabi 

Tischler and Owolabi will use the funds to produce and screen "The Tower," a short film about car theft and community. "The Tower" is a screenplay set to be produced in July 2022 by a 15-person crew of emerging craftspeople from the Metro area. "The Tower" will premiere at the artists’ Friends Festival, a bimonthly opportunity for creatives in St. Louis to share and celebrate video art.

2020

The Luminary, in partnership with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, offered immediate artist emergency grants totaling $60,000 for artists and arts organizers in the St. Louis region. Built from our Futures Fund regranting initiative, we diverted funds for 2020 to support the direct needs of those in our community most impacted by COVID-19.

Artist and arts organizers are among those hit the hardest not just by the arrival of the coronavirus, but by the unpredictable effects of the closure of art spaces, suspended teaching engagements, cancelled commissions, exhibitions, and events of all kinds, not to mention the many contract and service jobs lost that sustain many artistic practices. We are in and of the world and the world is in crisis. The Futures Fund: Emergency Relief for Artists grant is meant as a small intervention and expression of solidarity and support; we wish to stitch together enough support for now so that there is a horizon for us to live into.

The Grants will offer sixty $1,000 grants over two cycles and will reserve funds from a total grant from the Warhol Foundation of $100,000 for further infrastructure and support. Applicants are not required to use funds for a project: these unrestricted $1,000 grants may be used for shelter, food, seeds, childcare, communal care -- whatever makes life possible for these uncertain months. Projects emerging out of this unique moment are welcome, but not required, though we encourage grantees to work with us to report out stories of support and survival -- the persistence of art in the midst of emergency, the ways in which we still reach to respond to what feels insurmountable.