upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024

upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024

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Announcing the 2022 Transformation Award Recipients

In December 2022, Leeway Foundation awarded 13 artists with the Transformation Award, moving $180,000 to women, trans*, and gender nonconforming artists and cultural producers at the intersection of art and social change.

The 2022 cohort of awardees consists of a vast array of artists and cultural producers implementing a variety of mediums and social change intents – musicians seeking justice for incarcerated folks, photographers documenting queer fat and disabled bodies with grace and humanity, media artists investigating immigrant and racial justice, visual artists and poets preserving and reimagining their cultural legacies across Black and/or Muslim American experiences, performers centering communal joy, and more. This year’s cohort challenges our perception of storytelling and asks, “How do we utilize art in imaginative and expansive ways to creative a vision and action for our collective future?”

These 13 awardees have continued to work through the continued impact of the pandemic, safely adapting their practice(s) and community engagement.  

The 2022 Leeway Transformation Award (LTA) recipients are (in alphabetical order):

Amelia Carter of Mantua, Multidisciplinary
BL Shirelle and Simply Naomi of Lawncrest and Northeast Philadelphia, Music
Charlyn/Magdaline Griffith/Oro of Kingsessing, Multidisciplinary
Curtis Walker of Fairmount, Visual Arts/Performance
DARIA of Bucks County, Music
Gabi Sanchez of Overbrook, Multidisciplinary
Gabriela Watson-Burkett of Cheltenham, Media Arts
Ife Nii Owoo of Germantown, Visual Arts
John Jarboe of West Philadelphia, Performance/Music
Sham-e-Ali Nayeem of Rutledge, Literary Arts/Music
Sophie Dipti Sarkar of Belmont, Visual Arts/Literary Arts
Vernon Jordan, III of Cedar Park/Kingsessing, Multidisciplinary 

A national panel of artists and cultural producers convened to review applications and work samples in this two-stage process. The 2022 panel included Los Angeles based poet, organizer, and educator Cynthia Dewi Oka (ACG ‘ 16, LTA ’17), Black 7th Generation North Carolinian feminist, mother, healer, and multimedia maker Omisade Burney-Scott, and Zimbawean-American, Baltimore-based artist, ritualist, and cultural organizer Rebecca Mwase. The second stage panel welcomed San Antonio-based multidisciplinary artist and arts administrator Mari Hernandez and Sri Lankan born, Brooklyn-based DJ, cultural organizer, and activist Thanushka Yakupitiyage a.k.a. “DJ Ushka”, and was facilitated by Jess Solomon, Baltimore-based facilitator, organizational development practitioner, and cultural worker.

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Leeway grant?

Window of Opportunity Grant

The Window of Opportunity (WOO) grant provides financial assistance of up to $1,500 to Leeway grant and award recipients to help them take advantage of imminent, time-sensitive opportunities to support their art for social change practice. The Community Care Fund (CCF) provides financial assistance of up to $1,250 to Leeway grant and award recipients to support with immediate and essential emergency needs. [read more]

deadline
Upcoming events
04/025:30 pm - 7:00 pm

4/2 Transformation Award (LTA) Awardee Panel + Info Session (In Person)

Have questions about the application process for the Leeway Transformation Award (LTA)?

[learn more]

04/185:30 pm - 6:30 pm

4/18 Transformation Award (LTA) Info Session (Virtual)

Have questions about the application process for the Leeway Transformation Award?

[learn more]