2025 GRANTEES
RULE-BREAKERS, VISIONARIES, ARTISTS
Artist
Karim Ahmed
Project
LONGFANG
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Karim Ahmad is a writer, producer, and founder of Utopia Studio, a new narrative change studio, which just launched its inaugural slate with The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by the visionary Kaouther ben Hania, and which won the Silver Lion at the 2025 Biennale. Karim is the writer of the speculative fiction graphic novel, DIVIDE, creator of the Muslim Futures anthology, and founder of the Restoring the Future collective which designs and prototypes ways of working in the media arts industry that center restorative justice and care. Karim was also the Creator and Showrunner of the groundbreaking science fiction series, FUTURESTATES, was an Open SocietyFoundation Soros Equality Fellow, a member of the Guild of Future Architects, and can be found on most social platforms at @thatkarimahmad.
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LONGFANG is a YA punk rock, anti-imperialist, supernatural fantasy franchise, designed to span a WebTOON, multiple graphic novels in print, and a series of animated feature films, for global audiences, all in simultaneous development.
Artist
Braxton Cook
Project
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Braxton Cook is an Emmy Award Winning Artist and Grammy Award Winning Producer as well as one of this generation’s most exciting emerging voices in the Jazz world. Braxton grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. In 2013, Braxton was selected as a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. In 2015, he graduated from The Juilliard School where he studied Jazz Composition. While a student at Juilliard, Braxton toured with Grammy Award-nominated trumpeter Christian Scott and became a long-term member in Christian’s band honing his skills on the road. He has also toured and performed with Christian McBride Big Band, Jon Batiste and Marquis Hill among others. In 2017, Fader Magazine named Braxton a “Jazz Marvel” and “Jazz Prodigy.” And shortly after, Braxton was listed as Top Five Jazz Artist to Watch (alongside Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, Butcher Brown, and Kris Bowers) in the 2018 June Issue of Ebony Magazine. Braxton has released seven projects: his debut EP Sketch (2014), Braxton Cook Meets Butcher Brown (2015), Somewhere in Between (2017), No Doubt (2018), and Fire Signs (2020), Who Are You When No One is Watching? (2023) and Not Everyone Can Go (2025). Braxton currently resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and two sons.
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“Black Renaissance” is a bold new jazz project from Braxton Cook that is as much a visual statement as a musical one. This EP of original compositions, performed by a stellar quintet, is brought to life through the lens of a Black director and the sharp, iconic styling of a Black stylist, channeling the vibrant, dynamic energy of a Spike Lee joint. It’s a mission to redefine jazz accessibility and celebrate Black artistry in its totality.
“Black Renaissance”
Artist
Emel Mathlouthi
Project
Divina Tempesta: Echoes of Resistance
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Emel Mathlouthi is a Tunisian-American singer, songwriter, and producer who blends electronic sounds with North African influences. She gained international recognition in 2012 with "Kelmti Horra" ("My Word Is Free"), which became an anthem of the Arab Spring and which she performed at the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony. Her albums, including "Ensen" (2017) and "Everywhere We Looked Was Burning" (2019), explore themes of identity, resistance, and humanity. In 2024, she released "MRA", an album produced entirely by women artists that celebrates sisterhood and challenges patriarchal norms. Through her music, activism, and artistic innovation, Emel continues to inspire audiences worldwide.
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Divina Tempesta: Echoes of Resistance is a 5-part music film and digital series where Emel embodies five women of resistance, real and imagined, through performance, song, and poetic storytelling. Each episode presents a song from her album MRA, and together, the series becomes a cinematic and emotional journey through exile, protest, memory, and transformation. Across the five parts, each character reflects a resilient being who, in spite of tragedy and constraint, channels her creativity and presence as a means to strive, endure, and transcend. This shared resilience forms the common thread of the work, an ode to these women and to the continuous, often unacknowledged, struggles and triumphs of those who came after them.
Artist
Shirel Jones
Project
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Shirel Jones (Ms. Shirel) is a Detroit-based teaching artist, choreographer, and founder of Lil’ Dumplins, a creative platform blending ballet, play, and social-emotional learning for young children. An award-winning artist (Jubilation Foundation Fellow, Kresge Gilda Award recipient, CultureSource ARC Fund Fellow), she creates joyful, accessible arts experiences through live performances, community residencies, and her YouTube channel Ms. Shirel’s Imagination Island. Shirel’s work reimagines ballet and creative movement as tools for storytelling, belonging, and early childhood learning, empowering children to see themselves as creators.
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The Imagination Island Festival is a sensory-friendly arts festival that transforms children from passive spectators into active creators through dance, music, storytelling, and play. Launching in Detroit in June 2026, the festival extends its reach year-round through Imagination Island Virtual, offering educator toolkits, professional development, and licensed performances. Created by award-winning teaching artist Ms. Shirel, the project is designed to reach sensitive learners, expand access for families, uplift local artists, and build sustainable revenue pathways for creative educators. More than a single-day event, it is a scalable model for how immersive arts can strengthen communities and reimagine childhood learning.
The Imagination Island Festival
Artist
Grace Ann Lee
Project
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Grace Lee is an award-winning filmmaker working at the intersection of storytelling, activism, and community. Her work spans film, television, podcasts, and digital platforms, including the Peabody winning American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs and Asian Americans documentary series for PBS, And She Could Be Next, The Grace Lee Project and the podcast Viewers Like Us. She is co-founder of A-Doc, a national network supporting Asian Americans in the documentary field and brings a long track record of creating work that moves across mediums and mobilizes audiences. Her most recent film Forever We Are Young, about the passionate fandom for K-pop superstars BTS was released theatrically in cinemas worldwide in 2025. She has been supported by the United States Artist Fellowship, Ford Foundation/Just Films, MacArthur Foundation, NEA, ITVS, Sundance Institute, Chicken and Egg Pictures, IDA Enterprise Fund and others. She is a co-founder of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc), and is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Documentary branch.
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The Franklin Experiment is a multimedia project that uses Benjamin Franklin’s warning against inherited privilege and my family’s surprising connection to him to explore American identity today. Inspired by Franklin’s legacy, this alternate celebration of America’s semiquincentennial mines the creative spirit of a country in search of its revolutionary soul.
The Franklin Experiment
Artist
Eunice Levis
Project
Colmado del Futuro
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Eunice Levis is a writer-director and educator whose work blends science fiction, horror, and fantasy with a commitment to ethical, culturally rooted storytelling. A first-generation Dominican American, she creates ambitious, high-concept narratives that honor heritage while imagining new futures. Her award-winning films—including Fell Ends, Invade, and Ro & the Stardust (now streaming on Netflix)—have screened at leading festivals across the U.S. and internationally. She is a Fellow of the AFI Directing Workshop for Women+ (Class of 2026), a Starz #TakeTheLead Writer’s Intensive alum, and part of the Alliance of Women Directors’ Mentor Latina Directors program. Levis also teaches as an adjunct film professor and co-hosts Café Negro con Genre, a podcast spotlighting genre work by creators of color. She holds an M.A. from New York University and continues to expand her work across film, XR, and immersive storytelling.
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Colmado del Futuro is an immersive XR installation that reimagines the iconic Dominican corner store as a site of cultural memory, resistance, and speculative possibility. Drawing from Caribbean community traditions, the project invites audiences to step inside a familiar neighborhood gathering space—stocked with shelves, soundscapes, and everyday details—only to witness it slowly transform under the pressures of technological advancement, digital surveillance, and economic displacement.
Artist
Faith ‘Aya’ Umoh
Project
DanceAR
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Faith “Aya” Umoh is an award-winning new media artist, creative tech director, and data scientist exploring how AI, motion capture, and immersive and interactive design can expand cultural memory and storytelling. With 15 years in technology and a Master’s in Biostatistics and Public Health, she has developed 11 AI-driven tools, including a Stanford-funded co-creative AI system. Her work has been showcased in 15 exhibitions across eight countries, from W1 Curates in London to the Max Ernst Museum in Germany. In 2025, she won the MIT Reality Hack XR Grand Prize and Black Public Media’s Immersive Pitch for her visionary approach to cultural preservation through immersive media. Across her body of work, Aya continues to push the boundaries of how technology can honor heritage, spark reflection, and reshape the future of storytelling.
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DanceAR is an Unreal Engine plugin that transforms your movements into a living AR performance in minutes. Normally, turning dance into an AR avatar requires hours of motion capture setup and technical know-how. DanceAR collapses this into just a few clicks: upload a dance video, pick an avatar, preview it instantly, and publish to your phone as an interactive AR experience. With a simple scan-and-share workflow, anyone can place their dancing avatar into real spaces—on a table, in a living room, or at a festival—and record or share the moment. Think of it as a next-generation photobooth: instead of a snapshot, you leave with your own avatar holding your moves in memory through AR. By speeding up motion capture and AR export, DanceAR makes immersive storytelling tools accessible to creators, institutions, and communities everywhere.
Artist
Tunde Wey
Project
TACO Trade
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Tunde Wey is a social practice artist living between Nigeria and the United States. Working at the intersection of capital and the political economy, Wey’s work engages material hierarchies and disparities, focusing particularly on how economics and finance impact working class people globally. He uses food, writing, film, performance, installation and finance to confront these disparities and attempts interventions in the same mediums. Wey’s work has been widely covered, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Vogue, and GQ. His own writing has been featured in the Boston Globe, Oxford American, Bloomberg, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Wey has exhibited across the United States and internationally. He is a 2025 Harvard Loeb Fellow; a 2024 CANNESERIES Official Selection. Wey is also a recipient of the Monroe Fellowship from Tulane University (2023) as well as the Ford Foundation Just Films Grant (2022). Tunde Wey is working on a book of essays to be published with MCD (a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
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TACO Trade is a roving dining concept that draws dining audiences into conversation around today’s global trade and tariff regimes. It borrows its name from the acronym coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong—TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)—which describes a trading strategy where investors buy the inevitable market dip following a Trump tariff announcement. As Armstrong explains, Trump typically reverses or delays the tariffs, prompting a market rebound and profits for savvy investors. Trump, for his part, calls this a negotiating tactic. TACO Trade is a roving dining experience serving a variety of idiosyncratic, and unexpected street foods blending flavors from tariff levied geographies. The offerings available are only purchasable with specially minted crypto designed for the experience. Along with the food and non fiat payments, diners are served participatory games and topical conversations about our global economic system.