Menu
DESCRIPTION
The Fourth Annual En Foco Media Arts Fund: Work in Progress (WIP) Initiative: $2,000 Support Grant in collaboration with BronxNet is designed to support New York City artists of color who engage with Digital Media technologies within their art-making processes. The award will focus solely on works that need support toward the completion of a current work in progress, which demonstrates the highest quality of work and potential as determined by a panel of peers, and industry professionals. All innovative interpretations of Digital Media will be considered, requiring a critical digital aspect in both the process and product. Proposed projects where the final products are photographic in nature are ineligible for funding.
ELIGIBILITY
Only Works In Progress submissions will be considered for the award. Completed projects are ineligible. Entries that are traditional Photography and that the final product results in still imagery will not be considered. However, projects with other mediums and media that include photo-based processes will be considered. For this opportunity, early-career artists are defined by a 2-9 year artistic working history. Artists who have also applied for the 2024 Photography Fellowship are only eligible to receive one award if selected for either opportunity.
Entries may include but are not limited to:
WHO CAN APPLY
WHO CAN NOT APPLY
SUPPORT MATERIAL GUIDELINES
Support Materials should best represent the scope of the proposed projects, including samples of past work & current works in progress.
AWARD NOTIFICATION
The five grant recipients will be notified via email. The recipients will each receive a $2,000 support grant, to be used at the artist’s discretion towards the completion of the submitted project. Selected proposals will be exhibited online, on the En Foco Website, and featured at the 2024 En Foco Media Exhibition.
*Final Progress Interview
Recipients will be required to provide a brief statement and progress interview outlining the project’s development and what the support helped accomplish within the project – This will be due by October 2024. The recipients will each receive $1,500 upon notification of the award with the balance of $500 to be remitted at the completion of your progress interview in November 2024.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
The application form does not have to be completed in a single session; the system will save your draft application. We suggest that you save often as you fill out the form and that you save a copy of any narrative texts.
The application is currently closed. Please join our mailing list to receive updates on out 2025 Application cycle. Mailing List.
ABOUT EN FOCO
En Foco is a non-profit organization that nurtures and supports contemporary fine art and documentary photographers of diverse cultures, primarily U.S. residents of Latino, African and Asian Heritage, and Native Peoples of the Americas and the Pacific. Since it was founded in 1974, En Foco has been an outspoken leader and advocate for equitable support and access to resources for photographers of color. It has distinguished itself through its sustained commitment to providing its primary constituency and the communities they represent financial support, public programming, information services, and cultural advocacy initiatives.
ABOUT BRONXNET
BronxNet provides hands-on television production training, equipment access, and channels for Bronx residents. Award-winning BronxNet programs keep BronxNet in touch with the people, issues, neighborhoods, and activities that make the borough what it is today. The vision for BronxNet came from dedicated Bronx officials, who worked with residents to create a fully-equipped television station and media center that would be accessible to Bronx residents, students, community organizations, and leaders.
The En Foco Media Support Grant is supported with Special thanks to The Jerome Foundation for underwriting the Media Arts Works In Progress Fund, with additional funds from The Joy of Giving Something, Inc., The Ford Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature and individual donors.
If you have questions about the Media Fund please contact: [email protected]
En Foco is proud to announce the awardees of the 2024 Media Arts Works in Progress Fund. The Initiative was organized in collaboration with public access television network BronxNet and supports NYC-based, early-career artists of color who engage with digital media technologies in their art-making processes and need support for the completion of a quality work in progress. Awardees will receive a $2,000 support grant to be used towards the completion of the proposed projects and a special feature within the Fellowship issue of Nueva Luz.
The five 2024 Media Arts Fund: Work-In-Progress Initiative Awardees were chosen from a pool of 71 applicants by panelists, Katherine Emely Gomez, Visual Artist, Illustrator, and Design Manager, Tricia McLaughlin, Visual Artist, and Ramón Torres, Filmmaker educator, and musician.
The En Foco Media Arts Fund: Works In Progress (WIP) Initiative has evolved from the En Foco Photography Fellowship with a growing awareness of the expanding language of photography and consideration for artists engaged in more inclusive forms of media-making. The Media Arts Fund is En Foco’s response to provide for more opportunities for early-career artists of color, who would like to have their work supported, and exhibited. En Foco has successfully assisted previous awardees in their fundraising as well as used the services of funded artists as consultants in various initiatives. En Foco is always available to media artists who need career advice.
Laura Dudu – Is a multidisciplinary artist and queer Feminist activist blending studio work with social practice. They use video, participatory performance, food, poetry, and installation to explore themes related to sinophone diaspora identity, power structures, and social justice.
https://www.instagram.com/caocollective/
Deshon Leek – A Harlem-based poet, writer-filmmaker, and Emmy award-winning producer. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Film at Morehouse College before relocating to New York City. Deshon’s work often focuses on challenging conventional notions around Black manhood, queer identity, and mental health. https://www.instagram.com/deshonleek/
Ambika Raina – A choreographer and dance director in Lenape territory/NYC. Bharatnatyam-trained, her unique, eclectic modern choreography shapeshifts for her stage dance, theater, music videos, and dance films. Ambika has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Choreography in a Play, for her regional theater debut choreographing and associate directing A Nice Indian Boy. https://www.instagram.com/ambika.raina
David Sainté – Is a multimedia visual artist rooted in Brooklyn, NY. He draws inspiration from a transformative journey rooted to Haiti just a week after the 2010 earthquake. His work serves as a profound vessel, encapsulating the impact of a Haitian American reconnecting with his ancestral homeland. https://www.instagram.com/i.day.dream.in.summer/
Tansy Xiao – Is an artist, curator, and writer based in New York. Xiao creates theatrical installations with non-linear narratives that often extend beyond the fourth wall. Her work explores the immense power and inherent inadequacy of language through the assemblage of stochastic audio and recontextualized objects. http://tansyxiao.com
Daisy Ruiz – Better known online as @Draizys, is a Bronx-bred Illustrator, Founder and Creative Director of award-winning compilation zine Deadass Tho NYC, and Gordita: Built Like This. Her illustrations take inspiration from her 5 year-long Scene phase, her East Coast Chicana upbringing, and everyday NYC living, just to name a few.
Instagram
Marília Gurgel – is a multimedia artist focused on visual narratives. She was born in Mossoro, north east of Brazil and in 2007 she moved to Rio de Janeiro to study. She has a BA degree in Performing Arts – Theater Direction from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. In 2021 she moved to New York to study, she is a graduate of the Documentary Practices program at the International Center of Photography.
Instagram
Nancy Ma – is a first generation Chinese American actor, filmmaker, and teaching artist. Her work focuses on finding the funny, intimate and redemptive in forgotten places. Her solo show about growing up in Chinatown, Home, produced by The Latino Theater Company, has been performed at schools and festivals around the country. She currently co-hosts a podcast, Hoisan Hour, with her sister on the Chinese diaspora.
Instagram
Sean-Josahi Brown – is a documentarian whose work depicts hope and the resilience of people living in impoverished conditions. Born in Harlem, he draws inspiration from the common human experience to capture raw emotion and share compelling stories that raise awareness for social issues. Sean uses the medium of storytelling to amplify the voices of others through art and creativity while producing work geared towards radical change.
Instagram
Zoë Marie Jimenez – is an NYC based Black & Puerto Rican filmmaker. Her goal is to seamlessly blend marginalized characters and stories into the narrative to combat the backhanded “just another black film” or some other variation of a shallow and eurocentric description. Zoe graduated from NYU Tisch school of the Arts, previously interned at Katch Media as a Media Genome Analyst and 1st Ave Machine in the Creative Development department.
Instagram
In 1997, LaChris Alfaro, with her mother, left Puebla, Mexico to cross the U.S. border. At age 14 she fell in love with photography. When Alfaro’s peers started applying to art school, she was hit with the harsh reality that my undocumented status presented real restrictions. Alfaro could not apply for financial aid, get state tuition, or even a loan. This forced her to teach herself taught and explore the art world outside of academia, leaving it up to me to find her immediate community to gain the experiences needed to elevate her craft. Alfaro subsequently went on to graduate from Manhattan Borough Community College with an Associate degree in Video arts. And in 2013, she enrolled in Hunter College to pursue a degree in media studies, for which she received a Bachelor’s degree in 2021.
Instagram
Daniela Amézquita is a Mexican lens-based storyteller living in the Bronx, NY. With a B.A. in Social Communication, she worked seven years at Cineteca Nacional de México as an audiovisual producer. She also collaborated on audiovisual projects at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and with the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México. In 2019, she graduated from the New Media Narratives program at the International Center of Photography (ICP) and in 2020 she was honored to receive the 2020-2021 Bronx Documentary Center Film Fellowship where she worked in her first short documentary “Tú te quedaste.”
Instagram
Bianka Widakay is a Brazilian-born filmmaker and a Telly® Award-winner producer. In her current exploration, she investigates habits embedded in Afro-Latino communities shaped by immigrants. Bianka directs documentaries, promo and demo videos, and the show Noise – an ongoing TV series that airs on selected public access channels in New York City and portrays side and angle relationships of New Yorkers. Additionally, Bianka serves as the producer of the medical TV Show Objetivo Tu Salud [Se. 3, 4, and 5], which airs weekly on Telemundo 74. In past capacities, she served as the video editor for the TV show Puerto Rican Voices – a documentary series highlighting the contributions of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, CUNY. Bianka is a member of the jury committee for the 21 Islands Intl Short Film Festival, in partnership with PRTT-Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, which presents films from island nations, territories, and states all around the world that expresses cultural, philosophical, social, and aesthetic notions of island life. An avid Salsa dancer, Bianka’s praised video editing pacing is attributed to the rhythmicality acquired over the years of extensive training in Afro-Cuban Casino and Mambo dance.
Instagram
Everette S. Hamlette’s work focuses on the beauty and resilience of people living in the Bronx. In 2016, after graduating with a journalism degree from the State University of New York at Albany, Everette returned home to work as a documentary journalist at BronxNet TV. There, he produced short form content about the daily lives of people in his neighborhood. In 2017, Everette founded his own production company, Stylish Ev Productions, and began work on his first feature documentary, “75 Park: e pluribus unum” about his changing neighborhood park. An early trailer of the film was screened at City Hall to raise awareness about the racial inequities in the NYC parks system. It was a revelation and Everette is now a speaker throughout the city on the topic. Everette is also a member of the national film collective the Filmshop and recently 75 Park was honored to be chosen for the intensive Filmshop Studio program.
Instagram
Tanika I. Williams (b. 1981, St. Andrew, Jamaica; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) is an award-winning filmmaker and performance artist. She investigates women’s use of movement, mothering, and medicine to produce and pass on ancestral wisdoms of ecology, spirituality, and liberation. Williams holds a BA from Eugene Lang College, New School, and MDiv from Union Theological Seminary. Her films have been screened at festivals and broadcast on American television. Williams has been awarded residencies at New York Foundation for the Arts, Hi-ARTS, and BRIC. Additionally, she has been featured on 99.5 WBAI; Art in Odd Places; Creative Time; Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Civic Art Lab, Greenspace NYC; Let Us Eat Local, Just Food; and Performa.
Instagram
Janah Cox is a Nuyorican documentary director and editor born and raised in the Bronx, NY. Her previous editorial work has premiered at Cannes, Berlinale, Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and New York film festivals, among others. She was recently the editor of Bad Hombres, a feature documentary premiering on Showtime in October 2020, and has worked on award-winning films including The King, Mr. Soul!, 93Queen, and Get Me Roger Stone!. She holds a BA in Globalization Studies with a focus in Latin America from SUNY Albany, was a 2019 Karen Schmeer Diversity in the Edit Room Fellowship recipient, and a 2020 IF/Then North Shorts grant recipient. She is currently editing an untitled feature documentary directed by Yance Ford. Melting Snow is her directorial debut.
Najiyah Edun is an interdisciplinary artist, spatial designer, and creative technologist based in NYC. Raised in the post-colonial African nation of Mauritius, with mixed parents of Asian and South Asian origins, at 20 she moved to the US for college. Trained and licensed as an architect, she has since worked on the design and development of a number of cultural institutions such as Philarmonie de Paris Concert Hall, the US Embassy compound in Nigeria, as well as large-scale infrastructure and transportation projects in NYC and beyond. In her architecture projects, the continued goal is to enhance community by providing and enhancing civic spaces. She first fell in love with the possibilities of spatial interactive design at the MIT Media Lab, exploring the thermal properties of shape memory alloys and their applications in regulating space for daylighting and information display. For the past few years, she has been examining the intersections of the digital and the physical. Her work has been featured at Le Palais de Tokyo in Paris, at the Gray Area Showcase, at the D3 Gallery in NYC, and at Makerfaire. Najiyah holds a master’s from MIT and has studied at the Gray Area and the MIT Media Lab.
Jaclyn Reyes is an artist, designer, and cultural organizer with experience in bridging multidisciplinary practices with education, storytelling, and research. Her body of work ranges from social practice projects in Little Manila, Queens, New York to music and dance with performing groups such as Gamelan Dharma Swara. She has worked for Campaign and Creative Services at BerlinRosen, the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the Resilient Communities program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Penguin Random House, Condé Nast, and Visionaire. In 2014, she received a Fulbright grant to be an educator in Malaysia. As a teaching artist, she has worked in Brooklyn, Phnom Penh, Xela, and Gamay. She was a 2020 Create Change Artist-in-Residence at The Laundromat Project and a recipient of a 2020 Asian Women Giving Circle grant. She studied studio art at California State University Long Beach before transferring to Syracuse University where she earned her BFA in art photography. In 2019, she earned her master’s degree in Arts in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Justine Reyes lives and works in New York. She received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2004 and a BFA from Syracuse University in 2000. Reyes has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including Proyecto Circo at the 8th Havana Biennial, Cuba; Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey; Queens International 4 at The Queens Museum of Art, the S-Files Biennial at El Museo del Barrio, the Humble Arts Foundation’s 31 Women in Art Photography and the Flash Forward Festival in Toronto. She was an artist in residence at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in 2008 and exhibited the series Vanitas there in 2010. Reyes was awarded the Juror’s Choice Award from the Center’s project competition, a workspace residency from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), and Visiting Scholar status at New York University. She was also a recipient of a QCAF grant from the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs for her series Home, Away from Home and was named one of PDN’s (Photo District News) Top 30. Her work has been published in Harper’s Magazine, Real Simple, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.
Betty Yu is a socially engaged multimedia artist, filmmaker, and activist from NYC. Ms. Yu integrates documentary film, new media, and community-infused approaches into her practice. She is a co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade, an anti-gentrification cultural collective. Ms. Yu has been awarded artist residencies and fellowships from the Laundromat Project, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Santa Fe Art Institute, Asian American Arts Alliance, Intercultural Leadership Institute, and SPACE at Ryder Farm. Her work has been presented at the Directors Guild of America, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival’s Interactive Showcase, and the Eastman Kodak Museum. She had her first solo exhibition, “(Dis)Placed in Sunset Park” at Open Source Gallery. It was also in the 2019 BRIC Biennial, receiving an honorable mention in The New York Times. In 2017, Ms. Yu won the Aronson Journalism for Social Justice Award for her film Three Tours about U.S. veterans returning home from the war in Iraq and overcoming PTSD. She holds a BFA from NYU’s TSOA, an MFA from Hunter College, and a certificate in New Media Narratives from the International Center of Photography. Ms. Yu had her curatorial debut in fall 2020, presenting “Imagining De-Gentrified Futures” at Apexart in NYC.
© 2024 En Foco, Inc. | All Rights Reserved
En Foco, Inc.
15 Canal Place
Bronx, NY 10451
Email: [email protected]
Call: (917) 503-8017