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Bilen Mesfin Packwood
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East Bay Fund for Artists
Announces 2024 Awardees
Over $300,000 Awarded in Grants to 22 Black Artists and Artists of Color
OAKLAND, Calif. — East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) announced the 2024 awardees of the East Bay Fund for Artists (EBFA), which will provide $311,980 to 12 individual artists and 10 to organizations. All grants from the fund support Black, Indigenous, and people of color artists and Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led organizations.
“Art is a vital tool for survival, healing, and resistance. Even more, art and the people who create these works build community resilience and power, and they give voice, agency, and visibility to communities most harmed by oppression,” said Debrah Giles, Senior Program Director at East Bay Community Foundation. “The East Bay Fund for Artists is proud to support these visionaries whose creative expressions help us imagine new landscapes, rewrite narratives, liberate unrealized potential, recover old wisdoms, and spark radical hope.”
Since 2003, the East Bay Fund for Artists has partnered with more than 200 nonprofit organizations to commission new works by over 300 local artists. The Fund has leveraged $3 million in new financial support for composers, playwrights, choreographers, and visual and media artists in the East Bay. The Fund is part of East Bay Community Foundation’s core program strategy for arts and culture with a social and racial justice lens.
This year, awardees were selected to create new and diverse works of art that would be important tools for creative expression to build community resilience and power in the East Bay. Funding will support pieces in various media, including storytelling, spoken word films, dance pieces, and murals across Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The East Bay Fund for Artists 2024 awardee projects include the following (full list below):
- Cat Brooks / Anti-Police Terror Project: “Driving the Girls” – Driving the Girls is a semi-autobiographical play about an ambitious Black woman who supports herself in college in Las Vegas by driving sex workers around town. This exposes the lead character to normalized violence against women – particularly Black women, racist and violent interactions with police, white supremacists, and substance abuse. The play brings to light systemic neglect and racism to provide healing and transformative justice.
- Leslie Lopez and Camilo Velazquez / Youth ALIVE!: “Free Your Mind – Life is Beautiful” –
The Free Your Mind – Life is Beautiful mural will be a large-scale and community-driven piece of artwork that brings together Oakland youth, local artists, and community members. The project will transform public space at The Crucible into a vibrant mural that celebrates the strength and beauty of Oakland’s communities, particularly those most impacted by violence and systemic injustice. - Oakland Ballet Company: “Angel Island Project” – Angel Island Project is a captivating celebration of AAPI artistry, with powerful dance and live music bringing to life the haunting poems carved by detainees at the historic Angel Island Immigration Station. Dance performances reflecting the stories of detained immigrants are choreographed by AAPI choreographers from a range of backgrounds – Chinese American, Indian American, Taiwanese American, and Japanese American.
- Oaklash: “Tragic Queendom” – Tragic Queendom is a series of drag performances featuring new works by 20 local Black, Latinx, and Indigenous queer and trans artists from the Bay Area. Through dance, costuming, and music, the artists subvert the concepts of toxic masculinity and rigid feminine expectations with absurdist, comedic, and glamorous performances.
- Papo Rebolledo / ARTogether: “Echoes of Freedom” – Echoes of Freedom is an immersive augmented reality experience that intertwines the powerful stories of Venezuelan freedom fighters with the personal narratives of Venezuelan migrants who fled their homeland. This project bridges the past and the present, creating a dialogue between historical struggles for freedom and the ongoing journey of those in the diaspora seeking safety and new beginnings.
The full list of 2024 awardees:
- 21V / Fractured Atlas, Inc., “A Screw Plunges to the Ground
- Cat Brooks / Anti Police-Terror Project, “Driving the Girls”
- Elenita O’Malley / Independent Arts & Media, “Oakland Ilokana”
- Eric Avery / New Performance Traditions, “The Pla[y/n] for Reparation$”
- Freddy Padilla and Levonte Crosby / ArtPush, “A Home to Learn and Grow From”
- Grown Women Dance Collective / Dancers’ Group, “How to Not Get Long Covid? Don’t Get Covid”
- Jamey Williams / Bay Area Creative, “Mad City”
- Joti Singh / Dancers’ Group, “Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink”
- Kaitlin McGaw and Tommy Soulati Sheperd / SOZO Impact, “Shades”
- Leslie Lopez and Camilo Velazquez / Youth ALIVE! “Free Your Mind – Life is Beautiful”
- Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, “Changing Lives, Changing Narratives”
- Muisi-Kongo Malonga / Girls to Women, “Nkunga”
- NAKA Dance Theater / Dancers’ Group, “Ja weya ob’aj wij, ex weya nchemaj/Mi Historia, Mi Telar/My Story, My Weaving”
- Nikka Maynard / World Arts West, “Amazed by Grace”
- Nkeiruka Oruche / Dancers’ Group, “Tales by Moonlight, an Afro Culture Portal (TBM)”
- Oakland Ballet Company, “Angel Island Project”
- Oakland Technology and Education Center, “AfroComicCon presents: The Revolution Will be Illustrated”
- Oaklash, “Tragic Queendom”
- Papo Rebolledo / ARTogether, “Echoes of Freedom”
- Pelisa Arts & Energy / World Arts West, “Mbongui Healing Project”
- Shruti Abhishek Dance / Independent Arts & Media, “And She Spoke”
- Vital Arts, “Symphony No. 1: …And no one died, thus we began to see in the dark”
The East Bay Fund for Artists is administered through a multi-step process. Following an open call for applications, submissions are reviewed by a panel with deep knowledge in the arts and culture field representing the diversity of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The East Bay Fund for Artists is currently supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett, and the generous donors of East Bay Community Foundation.
ABOUT EAST BAY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION Founded in 1928, and supported by over 400 local donors, the East Bay Community Foundation (EBCF) connects donors with community-led movements to eliminate structural barriers, advance racial equity, and create an inclusive, fair, and just East Bay. Recognized as 2019’s “Boldest Community Foundation” by Inside Philanthropy, EBCF is committed to ensuring that all members of our community are treated fairly, with equitable opportunity and outcomes. EBCF has charitable assets under management of over $800 million. For more information, visit: EBCF.org