2012 Joyce Award Winners Announced

CHICAGO, Jan. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Joyce Foundation announced today four winners of the prestigious 2012 Joyce Awards to commission artists of color to create new works with cultural institutions. The Joyce Awards recognize innovative, thought-provoking projects and come with a $50,000 grant. Winners were selected for artistic merit, audience engagement potential, and are commissioned in collaboration with an arts or cultural institution that contributes to a dynamic community engagement plan. The Joyce Foundation seeks to fund projects that bring diverse audiences together, and create common cultural experiences that encourage participants to see art as integral to their lives and communities. This year's winners will create projects in four Midwest cities; Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Indianapolis. (download video/photo files)

2012 Winners include:

• William Pope.L working with SPACES in Cleveland to create, "Parade: a large-scale public project that interweaves the memories, dreams and histories of Clevelanders." Pope.L will solicit photographs and stories from residents of all economic, social and racial backgrounds and host community workshops to curate these images, which will then be woven together into a video, projected on giant screen on the back of a truck, and hand-pulled through five neighborhoods, allowing Clevelanders to directly engage with the dreams and realities of their fellow citizens. (video)
• Reggie Wilson working with Columbia College Chicago Dance Center to create Moseses Project, an evening-length dance theater work, exploring the interfaith mythical, biblical, historic and global references of Moses. In addition to the production itself, the Joyce Foundation will fund Wilson's research residency in Chicago, and a two-week community engagement residency with Wilson and four dancers in order to bring Chicagoans into the creative process. (video)
• Luis Alfaro as lead artist, working with Enrique Adyanthaya and Marlina Gonzalez to write a season of plays based on the ideas behind Latino/Asian fusion in collaboration with two Twin City theater companies, Teatro del Pueblo and Pangea. The plays will range from love stories of interracial couples exploring tensions between their two communities to a children's story adapted from a fable, and will be created in a process that includes the community as collaborators and participants.(video)
• Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has been commissioned to create an interactive, light-based work for a prominent location in downtown Indianapolis. The installation will be the first significant work by an artist of Latino descent in the city centre. The Indianapolis Museum of Art will provide curatorial oversight of the project. (video)

"After nine years, we can point to a legacy of thirty-two prior Joyce Award winners. They have made a significant impact in the art world, and in communities through the way people interact with their art," said Ellen Alberding, President of The Joyce Foundation.

The goal is for these commissions to produce vivid, new works of art that strengthen cultural venues and draw people of diverse backgrounds to experience the rewards of participating in the arts. "Artists change cities. Artists change neighborhoods. Artists change individuals," explained Angelique Power, The Joyce Foundation's new Senior Program Officer for Culture. "That's why the Joyce Foundation supports democratizing the arts experience. As we can see from the long legacy of Joyce Award winning projects, neighborhoods and communities inspire world-class artists to create new works, and the artists in turn spark the imaginations of the people they touch. It's a wonderful relationship."

Changes to Joyce Awards in 2013:  In this time of great technological change, artists have been working within their communities in fresh, new ways. Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the award and the Joyce Foundation is going in the same direction. In the future, the Joyce Awards will support the work of diverse artists no matter where they choose to work whether that is in the gallery, on the stage, in the church, the schoolyard, the museum, the prison, or the community center. "We are looking at ways we can continue to commission innovative works by artists of color and recognize all the different places that art happens in communities," said Power. Specifically, look for the following changes for the 2013 Awards:

• The Joyce Foundation will no longer categorize entries by discipline but instead evaluate each project in its full context.
• Any 501 C-3 nonprofit organization in collaboration with an artist of color may apply, not just art institutions.

Since its inception in 2003, the Joyce Awards have supported cultural institutions in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Applications are reviewed by independent arts advisers from outside the Midwest, as well as foundation staff. Final decisions are made by the Foundation's board of directors. Each award supports the work of the individual artist as well as significant community engagement efforts.

About the Joyce Foundation: The Joyce Foundation supports policies that improve the quality of life for people in the Great Lakes region and that can serve as models for the country. Our efforts are focused on addressing today's most pressing problems while also shaping the public policy decisions critical to achieving long-term solutions and creating opportunity. The work is based on sound research and aimed at areas where we can add the most value. We encourage new, forward thinking and innovative approaches with a regional focus and the potential for a national reach.

The Joyce Foundation: Improving the quality of life in the Great Lakes region and across the country.

SOURCE The Joyce Foundation