Thank you to everyone who applied to, showed interest in, and gave support towards the New Haven Artist Corps Grant.
Through generous support from the Mellon Foundation, the Arts Council along with our Facilitators IfeMichelle Gardin, Tiffany (Typhanae) Williams, Zino Adjroud, Alana Ladson, Jasmine Honegan, and Frank Brady are pleased to announce our twelve awardees who will use their $20,000 to create projects about New Haven, for New Haven.
These projects will be free and immersive for the community and the Arts Council will share details about events associated with these projects in the near future. We are excited for the community to engage with the New Haven Artist Corps, and look forward to sharing with our community the stories that will be gathered, shared, and preserved.
These projects will engage community members all over New Haven and invite their stories, stories that are often overlooked, to be shared with people who are unfamiliar with them; spreading awareness and creating a new lens for New Haven.
We look forward to what our cohort creates, learns, and how the artists grow through the project.
Read our awardees' artist bios and project descriptions below. Show them some love!
P.S. Round 2 applications will open on November 1, stay tuned!
New Haven native, Jacqueline Brown has spent years honing her craft as an actress, writer, and director. She enjoys all forms of artistic expression and continuously strives to reach new heights.
Project Description: Havenwill show the first two episodes of a series of the same name. An ambitious young actress (Haven) returns to her hometown after a failed attempt to elevate her career with a big move to black Hollywood. Sitting at a coffee shop, disappointed and disheartened, a voice of faith leads her to discovering a new haven. In this season, the audience will follow Haven as she is reintroduced to her hometown and learns more about the rich history that has been and is currently being made in the city. Stories will be collected from New Haven natives to incorporate into the script and local actors and creatives will be used to produce the episodes.
Jason (Jahsun) Dorsey is a Poet/Playwright/ Teaching Artist. A New Haven Artist Activist who loves words, people, and community
Project Description:Creative Collective Conversations is a forum to utilize different artistic forms to engage in community-building dialogue. It consists of a quarterly event with the debut production, "What's Good?”, a thirty-five minute play that shows the effects of violence on families and communities, and a forty-five to sixty minute talkback. Community members will be called to participate in the production and script.
Krystal Harris is a filmmaker with a passion for storytelling; as a New Haven native, she honed her artistic skills by attending New Haven’s public art schools. Krystal continues to grow her inner creative by working with some of the nation’s leading entertainment and beauty companies; with an exploratory and compassionate approach, Krystal’s mission is to shed light on the journeys of people of color, and those who are disenfranchised.
Project Description: Onward Upwardis a documentary (and immersive exhibition that will be open to the public) that depicts the lives of Black New Haven residents during the 1960s and 1970s. Using the personal journey of Myrtle W Ponteau, an 85 year old retired educator, we will explore the lives of black residents who journeyed to New Haven by way of The Second Great Migration (1940 – 1970).
Chalyce Jacobs, a New Haven-born Curator promoting true purpose, true connections, and true experiences. Founder of Organic Experiences Only, she remains close to “the culture” and will exhibit how close “the culture” is to You!
Project Description:Organic Experiences Only (OEO) - OTB2is a vehicle where talents, gifts, and culture can be showcased within its own communities. It is a space that captivates and highlights the active culture within our city. This space captivates by giving by giving you a listening experience designed to display the arts, culture, and stories of our New Haven community. We will share stories and experiences through curated events that highlight our BIPOC community and cultural efforts.
Wes Lewis is a jazz saxophonist, composer, and interdisciplinary scientist based in New Haven, CT. Along with growing his body of work as a bandleader, session player, and arranger, he is passionate about uniting and furthering the disparate musical environments and influences of his community.
Project Description: The New Haven Composers’ Spotlightwill directly interface with BIPOC composers living in New Haven, empowering marginalized artists to orchestrate their novel compositions for an ensemble of 15 distinguished local musicians. This project is aimed to reduce the segmentation between musical communities in New Haven, and to bring focus to a living musical history that can be traced back to New Haven’s roots in Jazz and Black American Music.
Linda Vauters Mickens was born in Newark New Jersey in 1954, and is a former student of Newark's fine and Industrial Arts as well as Montclair State University. Influenced by her family's deep southern roots, the sounds of blues, jazz and gospel she is concerned with the insufferable systemic racism in all communities. Her work is always evolving and comes from a place of deep understanding of the connection between pain, resilience and beauty.
Project Description: The Everyday Angel Bench Project-A Seat for the Soul. Building Connections, and Cultivating Community is designed to create designated spaces, community & artist-made benches, where community members can gather, share stories and engage in meaningful conversations. Benches will honor community members who have made an impact and community members will be called to assist in designing the benches. Events will be hosted at each bench and community members will be able to use the benches and interact with them through QR code.
Creative entrepreneur, experience curator, teacher and taste maker; Tea Montgomery is the owner of Threads by Tea, a lifestyle brand creating wearable art, body care and home products. Born and raised in New Haven, his mission is to inspire and empower others to live up to their own potential as an all-around creative and has been able to explore his creativity through visual arts, music and event production, cooking and creative writing.
Project Description: Ethos: A Wearable Art Experience is a fully immersive living exhibition in gallery setting involving set design, sounds, digital and physical art, a themed culinary experience and curated scents for each collection; it creates an experience that draws all of the senses, where people can touch, feel and find relation to the art. Ethos will explore five collections, each telling a story of inspiration, empowerment, growth, finding and living in your power. This project will focus on the history of fashion in NHV and getting that out into the wider community and will be making a statement to acknowledge that people’s personal fashion and style is a common language that we all communicate with to inspire and empower ourselves and others.
Denise Keyes Page (she, her) is founder of Ubuntu Storytellers I.D.E.A.L; which provides customized workshops on Inclusion, Diversity Equity and Anti Racism Leadership; from the inside out. The work begins with story – excavating one’s story to unearth one’s unconscious bias and racial identity formation. She is also co-founder of “Women Tell by the Decades;” story telling series and her work brings together her two passions: advocacy for equity and building community.
Project Description: Forgotten Pioneers: Untold Stories of Black Families in Dixwell from 1865 -1965 project will produce 2 oral storytelling concerts to be performed in the Dixwell Community where the storytellers will be people who identify as Black who either themselves or family members lived in the Dixwell neighborhood between the period of 1865-1965. There will be story sharing opportunities, storytelling coaching, and open mike opportunities.
Jamell Savage is a community worker in the Greater New Haven area, who knows and lived through the hardships of injustice, homelessness, inequality and poverty. Giving back and paying it forward to make a change for a better tomorrow.
Project Description: Surviving the Streets is designed to highlight the lives of the unhoused and change the narrative that has created a negative atmosphere surrounding those who are living through hardships in every community of New Haven; recent events such as the demolishing of Tent City, will be used as a background, especially as new Haven has a large unhoused population. Jamell will interview unhoused individuals to be put into a newsletter to share and offer crafting sessions for participants as well group therapy; an exhibition with the work created will be hosted.
Carl Testa is a bassist, composer, and electronic musician who has lived and worked in New Haven, CT for the past 17 years. He is currently working on his Sway interactive live processing environment and incorporating it into a in-progress 64-channel Wave Field Synthesis system for workshops, collaborations, and performances under the banner of the Creative Sound Cooperative.
Project: Building the Creative Sound is a musician cooperative in its early stages that aims to share technology and information resources in music, sound, and media arts with other artists and the general public who otherwise would not have access. By pooling together our resources and sharing information the Creative Sound Cooperative aims to help musicians and sound artists develop, create, and share their work with each other and the public through open workshops, performances, panel discussions, and other events. In addition to building a cooperative, the project will also highlight the histories of musician cooperatives in New Haven by focusing on the Creative Musicians’ Improvisers Forum that was active in New Haven from the mid-70s to mid-80s in an effort to locate the current cooperative work within a historical context.
Arvia Walker is a Black woman artist and political organizer; blending art with archival preservation and storytelling into her work. Driven by her deep love and passion for Black culture, history, and narratives, Arvia's art beautifully embodies her conviction that every Black person deserves to be both celebrated and revered.
Project Description: Reverence, An Archival Altaris a love offering to Black folks. Through this project, we celebrate the unique stories of the everyday people that we hold as our “greats and giants,” within communities of Black folks by intertwining the power of storytelling, archival preservation, and the transformative essence of altars. The stories will then be transformed into works of art, incorporating various mediums such as visual art, song, mixed media, and immersive installations. Each piece serves as a tribute and honor to the individuals who participate; honoring their presence, resilience, and contributions to the community. The artworks will then be thoughtfully curated in an exhibition, designed to create a sacred space where visitors can engage with the stories and reflect upon the experiences of Black folks from the city.
Sydney Williams
Sydney Williams is a multi-disciplined creative and maker in New Haven exploring how creative activities can help us develop our critical thinking skills and deepen our interpersonal relationships. Sydney is on a mission to facilitate community connection and support networks through hands on art activities.
Project Description: ReWild the Women will facilitate re-connection between women in neighborhoods throughout New Haven through group learning of skills and crafts such as art journaling, design and crafting. This reconnection will result in the sharing of stories and integral life skills as figurative villages of support are rebuilt. The project helps us to explore what makes up the village in the proverb "it takes a village to raise a child". We will partner with different artists from New Haven and surrounding areas to learn transferable skills through crafting/making, then record this information as an heirloom to pass down to the members of our village.
Congratulations to all the awardees-- you will do so many beautiful things for the community!
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven would like to thank the Mellon Foundation who will graciously provide financial support for the New Haven Artists Corps. Thanks to their support, over the next 2 years, the New Haven Artist Corps will focus on place-based projects that are rooted in what is local - the histories, environments, cultures, and stories that are unique to the City of New Haven.
Our sincerest thanks to our New Haven Artist Corps Facilitators, IfeMichelle Gardin, Tiffany (Typhanae) Williams, Zino Adjroud, Alana Ladson, Jasmine Honegan, and Frank Brady.
The Arts Council champions a diverse, regional arts community where creativity thrives, believing that art, culture, and creative expression are fundamental human rights. A leading regional nonprofit arts agency, we provide leadership and advocacy for artists and cultural organizations throughout the Greater New Haven community. Publisher of The Arts Paper, the Arts Council provides critical support services, community programs, and learning opportunities to thousands of artists, creative organizations, and residents every year.
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