Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture, in partnership with Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), have announced 16 ALAANA+/BIPOC artists and collectives received grants totaling $250,000 in the first year of the Radical Imagination for Racial Justice (RIRJ) program. The funds and program support are dedicated to artists who identify as ALAANA+ (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab or Native American) or BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and who work at the intersection of art, community, and justice to radically imagine and build toward a racially just society. These grants are made possible by the Surdna Foundation’s Thriving Cultures program. 

“As we continue to work to dismantle systemic racism in our city, it is critically important to learn from those who have been using their creative practices to envision a Boston where every single person has the opportunities to thrive,” said Mayor Walsh. “We are looking forward to sharing the work of the grantees, and continuing to support the arts and culture sector during these unprecedented times.”

“MassArt is proud to partner with the City of Boston to support BIPOC artists who are working in our communities to make our city a more racially just place to live, work, and create,” said MassArt Acting President Kymberly Pinder. “As a public institution and a community of makers, equity and activism is in our DNA. We’re excited to support this first cohort of artists and help them actualize their radical visions for racial justice in our city.” 

Artists, creatives, or cultural organizers who identify as ALAANA+ or BIPOC, who are at least 14 years of age and live or work in Boston were invited to apply. For the pilot year, the RIRJ program received over 300 applications and made 16 grants to an intergenerational group of artists. The grantees will develop a wide variety of projects that work toward racial justice in the City of Boston, including:

• collaborative audiovisual storytelling to examine anti-blackness in Latinx communities
• a multimedia project in Chinatown to build leadership and design skills of Chinatown youth to grow collective capacity for informing and facilitating deeper modes of community engagement for urban planners
• a game design studio that supports alternative economies for young game designers of color
• altar installations honoring Black Trans Femmes and Gender-Non-Binary (GNB) individuals. 

The complete list of grantees is below: 

$40,000 Grants

• UnBound Bodies Collective
• Adobo-Fish-Sauce
• Nia Holley
• Fabiola Méndez
• Husain Rizvi   
• Lily Xie 

$1,000 Grants

• Christine Alcindor 
• Mila Fields-Zayas 
• Silvina Ibañez 
• Mariona Lloreta 
• Nate McLean-Nichols 
• Micah x Ireon 
• S
• Leonard Tshitenge 
• Aggrey Twinomugisha
• Irischa Valentin 

Learn more about the artists and their proposed work at imaginejusticeboston.org.

Throughout 2021 the grantees will further develop and implement their work. Artists will gather several times throughout the project year to build fellowship, engage in sustained conversations about racial justice in Boston, and share how their projects are evolving.