Patch: Flushing Town Hall Announces $150K in Awards to Queens-based Artists

Patch: Flushing Town Hall Announces $150K in Awards to Queens-based Artists | April 2023: Flushing Town Hall announces that it has awarded $156,032 in grant funding as part of the Statewide Community Regrants program in collaboration with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). The funds will be split across 40 organizations and 15 individual artists awarded $2,500 each.

The grant winners were honored in a private ceremony at Flushing Town Hall on April 13. Elected officials speaking at the ceremony included Assemblymember Ron Kim (District 40), Assemblymember Jessica González Rojas (District 34), and Shane Miller from the Office of NYC Councilmember Sandra Ung (District 20). Veronica Tsang, Board President of Flushing Town Hall, Ellen Kodadek, Executive & Artistic Director of Flushing Town Hall and Megan White, Deputy Director of Programs of NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts) also delivered speeches that evening.

Flushing Town Hall was first named an NYSCA regranting partner for Queens County in 2022, and this year, the organization was able to distribute an additional $40,000 in regrants to artists across the borough.

The Arts Grants for Queens administered by FTH will fund arts and culture projects created and presented in Queens, with the aim to enrich and enliven the community and provide support for artists and arts organizations based in the borough.

“We are tremendously grateful to NYSCA for this opportunity to re-grant funding to Queens-based artists and arts organizations, and are appreciative for this year’s increase in funding for the Borough,” says Ellen Kodadek, Executive & Artistic Director of Flushing Town Hall. “We were founded in 1979 as an Arts Council (Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts) and continuing to support Queens’ artists is one of Flushing Town Hall’s greatest joys.”

“Flushing Town Hall works hard to support aspiring and professional artists with an array of services,” says Dan Bamba, Director of Arts Services at Flushing Town Hall. “In addition to the NYSCA regrants, artists can apply for Space Grants to develop their work in our facilities, and they can learn about the business needs of artists—with topics ranging from fundraising to marketing to bookings—in our Artist Professional Development Conversations series.”

With guidelines provided by NYSCA, this year’s Arts Grants for Queens recipients were chosen by an independent peer panel of artists, cultural workers, and Queens community stakeholders. The grantees consist of artists and organizations creating and presenting arts and culture projects that will enrich and enliven the cultural fabric of the Queens community.

Two of this year’s individual artist grant recipients include, among others:

Cecilia Lim
“From Queens to Our Motherlands” will bring together Queens-based BIPOC women and femme artists and cultural workers ages 35-49 of multiple disciplines (visual arts, dance, writers, etc.) to produce a zine.

Rejin Leys
“Reading the River” is a sculptural installation that explores our relationship with NYC’s waterways by incorporating shredded copies of five poems and one essay written from the 19th through the 21st centuries.

Two of this year’s organizations to receive grants include, among others:

DanceStream Projects (fiscally sponsored by Queens Community House)
“Stories in the Moment: Our Portraits,” is a dance project designed to amplify the voices of people living with dementia in Forest Hills. The project will bring together Queens and NYC-based artists with people living with dementia and care partners in Forest Hills through dance and storytelling in collaboration with the Queens Community House.

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Also mentioned in QNS.com.