Above photo: Asha Santee's research, ASCENTROIX
Artists who received a 2020–21 Wherewithal Research Grant share where their inquiries took them. These virtual presentations took place over two nights, on Thursday, June 17 and Thursday, June 24, 2021.
The twelve artists and collectives, each of whom received $5,000, are: Sobia Ahmad, CONTROL-ALT-DELETE, Ayana Zaire Cotton, janet e. dandridge, Jeremiah Edwards & Jeremiah Long, Curry Hackett, Michelle Lisa Herman, MJ Neuberger & Susan Main, Mojdeh Rezaeipour, Asha Adia Santee, Jessica Valoris, and Monsieur Zohore. Their research covers such wide-ranging subjects as ancestral memory, abolitionist technology, socio-ecological relationships, and the resurrection of now-forgotten performances.
You can now watch a selection of these presentations. Learn about Ayana Zaire Cotton's research on abolitionist technology, Curry Hackett's inquiries into Black ecological practices and relationships, Michelle Lisa Herman's important work examining the intersection of feminism, technology, art, and disability, and more. Watch the presentations here.
Learn more about each research project below.
Research Presentations | Night 1
Thursday, June 17, 6–8 pm EDT
Sobia Ahmad
MEMORY IS A HOMELAND
Ahmad has been exploring how textiles and traditional crafts preserve cultural memory and ancestral knowledge, specifically that of immigrant and indigenous communities.
Ayana Zaire Cotton
CRAFTING CARE: THE POETICS OF DESIGN, COMPUTATION, AND ABOLITION
Cotton is researching the relationships between abolitionist technologies and aesthetics to understand how they might help us imagine a liberated future.
Susan Main + MJ Neuberger
MEETING GROUND
In a time of ongoing environmental, social, racial, and economic inequity, as well as limited physical human connection, can touching the ground recenter attention, help us overcome trauma, and change the way we perceive the world around us?
Mojdeh Rezaeipour
MAPPING FRAGMENTS
Rezaeipour’s research focuses on a collection of ancient fragments of pottery that originate from over thirty sites located across the Middle East.
Jessica Valoris
BLACK FUGITIVE FOLKLORE
Valoris is exploring the histories of Black fugitivity, flight, and petit marronage (ways in which enslaved Africans subverted the plantation and captivity through truancy, gatherings, harboring fugitives, creating networks of complicity, and other practices), and how these histories can inform current movements for liberation.
Research Presentations | Night 2
Thursday, June 24, 6–8 pm EDT
CTRL+ALT+DELETE
A SERIES OF INTERVENTIONS IN THE GENDERED DIGITAL SPACE
This newly formed collective is building a visual language analyzing cyberpsychology, machine learning technology, and popular internet culture.
janet e. dandridge
INQUIRIES ON RELEASE AND OTHER PATHS TO LIBERTY
dandridge's research centers on Post/Present-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PPTSD) driven by the question: How can memory, dreams, asylum, and catharsis contribute to holistic healing for Black American females and the Black Diaspora who’ve experienced and continue to experience trauma throughout their lives?
Jeremiah Long & Jeremiah Edwards
PLACE BASED JUSTICE (PBJ)
With the goal of eventually developing curriculum, Long and Edwards are evaluating the impact of place-based education on local youth in DC’s Black community.
Curry Hackett
DRYLONGSO: AN EXPLORATION OF BLACK LIFE, FOOD, PLANTS, AND LAND
Hackett is exploring the socio-ecological relationships that Black folks foster and maintain within urban environments. His research is based on the assumption that these relationships exist, or can be envisioned, in spite of pervasive neo-colonial attitudes.
Michelle Lisa Herman
UP TO CODE? WHERE ABLEISM MEETS PATRIARCHY IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY
As a woman artist with disabilities working in and with technology, Michelle Lisa Herman is researching the relationships between ableism and patriarchy and the ways in which assumed defaults, when mediated through technology, continue to perpetuate assumptions that disenfranchise all.
Asha Santee
ASCENTROIX
Santee is researching how galactic escapism—an outer space reverie and sonic frequency—in interaction with racial trauma, can offer healing for the Black community.
About Wherewithal Grants
Wherewithal Grants are a funding source for visual artists in the DC-area. Generously funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its Regional Regranting Program and managed by WPA, these grants are intended to support a wide range of experimental and multidisciplinary practices, particularly those that emphasize collaboration and discourse. Since launching in 2019, Wherewithal Grants has supported 112 visual artists with a total of $160,000 in grants.
About the Warhol Foundation
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts' Regional Regranting Program was established in 2007 to recognize and support the movement of independently organized, public-facing, artist-centered activity that animates local and regional art scenes but that lies beyond the reach of traditional funding sources. The program is administered by non-profit visual art centers across the United States that work in partnership with the Foundation to fund artists’ experimental projects and collaborative undertakings.
The regranting programs are facilitated by 516 Arts in Albuquerque; Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation in Baltimore; Gallery 400 and Three Walls in Chicago; DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses in Houston; Charlotte Street Foundation and Spencer Museum in Kansas City; Locust Projects in Miami; Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis; Antenna and Ashe’ Cultural Fund in New Orleans; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland (OR); Spaces Gallery in Portland (ME), Southern Exposure in San Francisco, and Washington Project for the Arts in Washington, DC.
