BAI Awards Protest Art Micro Grants

By Kelsey Chepiga

The Brown Arts Initiative (BAI) has awarded 16 grants of $300 each to student and community artists to help create protest work in response to the current systemic racial injustice protests.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - The Brown Arts Initiative (BAI) has awarded 16 grants of $300 each to student and community artists to help create protest work in response to the current systemic racial injustice protests.

As part of its response to systemic racial injustice, the BAI started a fund to immediately support and sustain a creative response of public art in our streets and in our social spaces. These microgrants are for protest art of any kind and were open to Rhode Island residents, current Brown University students, staff, and faculty, as well as Brown University alumni.

Hear and See from Some of the Recipients

Quotes and images from a few individuals who received the grant are below.

Naya Lee Chang

Naya Lee Chang is a second-year student in the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program who is interested in American socio-political issues.

“The moments that compose movements become hazy in memory. What began as an outcry over the police killing of George Floyd has already evolved into a national (even worldwide) reckoning over manifestations of (in)justice. Through my series of mixed media paintings, I want to remember specific facets of this renewed reckoning's beginning … I want my art practice to help build an Asian American culture that entails cross-racial solidarity."

Steven Bruce Myerson

Steven Bruce Myerson is a Rhode Island-based playwright, spoken word poet, director, producer, and artist.

“My work, as a playwright and poet, examines the state of the country pre and in the midst of this pandemic, and the inherent contradictions of these times. It protests deficiencies in the system and challenges the status quo with the purpose of moving us from where we are as a society to a more just one … I am thankful to the BAI for this Protest Art Micro-Grant in support of my continuing work. It will help to fund a future public presentation.”

Nat Sorscher

Nat Sorscher is a Brown University alumnus, theater practitioner and writer.

Nat produced How Are You Doing Right Now? a peoples talk show that strives to amplify the voices of local communities and show just how powerful they are.

Jacques

Jacques is a community artist who is a Master Printmaker that has been at the helm of the AS220 Printshop since 2009.

Jacques has worked on several prints including a few that are shown below. Some of the additional prints not shown include quotes from Langston Hughes, Ida B. Wells, Ella Baker and Shirley Chisholm.

About Brown Arts Initiative

The Brown Arts Initiative (BAI) at Brown University seeks to cultivate creative expression and foster an interdisciplinary environment where faculty and students learn from one another and from artists and scholars in a wide range of fields across the campus and around the world. A consortium of six arts departments and two programs that encompass the performing, literary and visual arts, the BAI works collaboratively to enhance curricular and co-curricular offerings, directly engage students with prominent artists working in all genres and media, and supports a diverse program of concerts, performances, exhibitions, screenings, lectures and symposia each year. The BAI seeks to build on Brown’s reputation as a destination for arts exploration, contributing to cultural enterprise through the integration of theory, practice, and scholarship with an emphasis on innovation and discovery that results from rigorous artmaking and experimentation. For more information, see arts.brown.edu.