2007 GRANT PROJECTS
• THEATER
Claiming Our Voice • $13,000
Andolan
Andolan’s Claiming Our Voice is a collaborative theatre project that integrates the organization’s community organizing work with popular theatre. Based in Jackson Heights, Queens, Andolan is a workers’ center founded and led by South Asian immigrant women low-wage workers as a means to support each other and collectively organize against exploitative work conditions. Working with two trained artist-activists, the project will engage participants to tell their own stories and spark change through theatre workshops, community performances and public demonstrations as street theatre.
• WRITING WORKSHOP
UnFairy Tales: the Myths in Myths • $13,000
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
The goal of this project is to raise the consciousness of female youth about how myths and fairy tales have scripted gender roles and shaped sexuality and ethnicity in contemporary life. The project seeks to encourage young Asian American women to think critically about these issues in their personal and educational lives. The project will follow a workshop format and involve 15 high school female students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds.
• DOCUMENTARY FILM
New Year Baby • $9,000
Socheata Poeuv and Broken English Productions
New Year Baby is a documentary film directed by Socheata Poeuv about her family’s ordeal and ultimate survival under the Khmer Rouge. The grant will support an outreach campaign using the film as an educational tool at five screenings at NYC schools and community centers. The campaign will partner with social service organizations, educators and health advocates to engage the Cambodian American community, especially its youth, in dialogue and videotaped interviews of survivors by their children.
• ORAL HISTORY AND MULTIMEDIA
Portraits of New York Chinatown • $13,000
Tomie Arai, Lena Sze, and the Museum of Chinese in America
Portraits of New York Chinatown approaches the issue of gentrification from a dialogic perspective, using oral history, community conversations and arts-based workshops to unpack the layers of social, economic and psychological impact on NYC Chinatown’s residents, workers and families. Tomie Arai, printmaker, installation artist and community activist, and writer Lena Sze are collaborators on this project, which will culminate in a site-specific installation for MOCA. The final installation will be an interactive piece inviting visitors to contribute and participate in a series of on-site conversations with the artists.
• MULTIMEDIA INSTALLATION
Living Portrait • $13,000
New York Asian Women’s Center
Living Portrait is a mixed media sculpture that gives voice to the remarkable women in the Asian immigrant community who have broken and are breaking the cycle of domestic violence. The project is a collaboration between Nisha Shah Tanwar of the New York Asian Women’s Center (NYAWC), new media artists Heather Greer and Liubo Borisov, and composer Woody Pak. The project blends videotaped interview and photographs of the women in the NYAWC’s programs with music and animation to create a dynamic and engaging installation.
• COMMUNITY ART
Desi Girls on ‘Da Rise • $13,000
South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!)
SAYA! is the only organization of its kind in NYC providing non-sectarian comprehensive youth development services to the South Asian community. Desi Girls on ‘Da Rise is a program for low-income South Asian young women, ages 14 to 19, focusing on personal development, health and sexuality, expression through the arts, and community awareness. The group will work with an artist on an art project to address a socio-cultural or political issue identified by the young women to be showcased at an event at the end of the school year.