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Cleveland awards $3 million for arts projects around the city

Cleveland Transformative Arts Fund Committee members
City of Cleveland
The Transformative Arts Fund committee received 103 applications from which it chose seven projects to fund out of close to $3 million in ARPA funds. From left: Tarra Petras, Vince Robinson, Letitia Lopez, Deidre McPherson, Joyce Pan Huang, Gina Washington, Rhonda K. Brown, Maya Curtis, Gwen Garth and William Washington.

Immersive theater in public housing, sculpture in Asia Town and murals in Clark-Fulton are some of the projects planned with about $2.9 million in COVID-era relief funds. Cleveland set aside the money from the American Rescue Plan Act in October 2022 for the Transformative Arts Fund.

Seven public art projects by Cleveland artists working with Cleveland-based institutional partners will roll out over the next year. They include the deconstruction of a vacant house in the Woodhill neighborhood by artist and architect Malena Grigoli.

“She is going to do a choreographed deconstruction and performance of a home that she actually purchased from the Cuyahoga County Land Bank,” said Rhonda K. Brown, Cleveland’s senior strategist for arts, culture and creative economy. “It’s very exciting for us to think about how art can be a part of helping to solve some very serious crises that we have in the city of Cleveland.”

The materials will be formed into bricks, which will then be used to create a public artwork to be displayed where the house once stood.

“We were looking at all art forms: Not just visual,” Brown said. “We were very clear about that from the beginning, and the application gave artists the opportunity to check one box as their artist medium or multiple boxes as their medium, which I think was very cool and kind of gives opportunities for artists that do lots of things.”

Transformative Arts Fund artists
City of Cleveland
The Transformative Arts Fund will fund seven projects over the next year by (from left) Jameelah Rahman, Jordan Wong, Kumar Arora, LaTecia Delores Wilson Stone, Robin Robinson, Malena Grigoli and Ariel Vergez.

Another project, “Empowering Diverse Creatives, Our City & the Youth,” will stage a series of festivals on the East Side.

“That is a project that will have eight activations: Music activation, visual art, fashion, commerce,” she said.

Assembly for the Arts managed the art fund’s application process.

“The city of Cleveland, like no time before, is taking the power, the importance and the centrality of artists as one of its most serious pillars,” said Assembly CEO Jeremy Johnson. “This is major. This is great news for ‘The Land,’ not just for Cleveland, but for this country around how cities can play a role in bringing arts and creativity together with the social and economic concerns of our communities.”

The funding was approved in January, and 103 submissions were received before the March 30 deadline. Johnson said their goal is to get funds into artists’ hands while the projects are in progress, as opposed to reimbursement upon completion. LAND Studio is providing organizational support. Artists will be required to provide quarterly updates to access the funding, which is administered by a partner institution.

Awarded projects

9314 Sophia Ave: A Choreographed Deconstruction and Performed Maintenance of the Built Environment

Lead Artist: Malena Grigoli

Institutional Partner: Redhouse studio

Neighborhood(s): Woodhill

Medium(s): Architecture Artist + Design Project Recycling a House

Funding Amount: $364,000

 

Portals of Knowing

Lead Artist: LaTecia Delores Wilson Stone

Institutional Partner: Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority

Neighborhood(s): Central

Medium(s): Immersive Theater

Funding Amount: $312,185

 

For Those Who Call Here Home: Transforming Asia Town with an Outdoor Community Space

Lead Artist: Jordan Wong

Institutional Partner: The Sculpture Center

Neighborhood(s): St. Clair/Superior

Medium(s): Place-Making – Fabricated Installations and Sculpture

Funding Amount: $449,750

 

Storer Ave. Phoenix Project: Murals to Uplift the Human Spirit

Lead Artist: Ariel Vergez

Institutional Partner: Metro West Community Development Organization

Neighborhood(s): Clark-Fulton

Medium(s): Artist Renaissance – Live Garden, Murals and Handmade Sculptures

Funding Amount: $393,700

All My Babies Birthing the Afrofuture

Lead Artist: Jameelah Rahman

Institutional Partner: Cleveland Clinic—Langston Hughes Center

Neighborhood(s): Fairfax

Medium(s): Immersive Interdisciplinary Arts Experiences

Funding Amount: $482,125

 

IMPART216: Breathing Creativity into Community

Lead Artist: Robin Robinson

Institutional Partner: Ingenuity

Neighborhoods: Mt. Pleasant, Glennville, Cudell, Clark-Fulton, Woodhill, and Central

Medium(s): Mural Making and Breath Work

Funding Amount: $393,397

 

For Art's Sake® – Empowering Diverse Creatives, Our City & the Youth

Lead Artist: Kumar Arora

Institutional Partner: Campus District

Neighborhoods: Hough, Campus District, Downtown, University Circle

Medium(s): Festivals & Activations Music, Visual Art, Fashion, Commerce

Funding Amount: $465,343

Kabir Bhatia is a senior reporter for Ideastream Public Media's arts & culture team.