Presentation for One Flaming Arrow, co-curated by Demian Diné Yazhi’, Kaila Farrell-Smith, Carlee Smith, Thomas GreyEyes, R.I.S.E (Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment).
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  • Presentation for "One Flaming Arrow," co-curated by Demian Diné Yazhi’, Kaila Farrell-Smith, Carlee Smith, Thomas GreyEyes, R.I.S.E (Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment).

Last week, PICA announced the winners of their 2014 Precipice Fund grants, and they're a varied, innovative group, with projects that run the gamut from alternative arts spaces to a free comics-heavy magazine to an anti-capitalist reading and discussion group. At last Thursday's reception and unveiling of grant recipients, each artist or group of artists briefly explained their projects following Artistic Director Angela Mattox's welcome.

One the most promising-looking projects on the list is One Flaming Arrow, "an Intertribal music, art, and film festival" co-curated by Demian Diné Yazhi’, Kaila Farrell-Smith, Carlee Smith, Thomas GreyEyes, R.I.S.E (Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment). For a sense of what the festival might entail, check out "BURY MY ART AT WOUNDED KNEE: Blood & Guts in the Art School Industrial Complex," a show curated at PNCA last year by R.I.S.E. founder Diné Yazhi’ over at the R.I.S.E. Facebook page.

Meanwhile, Allie Hankins, who received a grant along with collaborators keyon gaskin, Taka Yamamoto, and Lucy Lee Yim for their latest project, Physical Education, is profiled in this week's Mercury. She talked to Suzette Smith about performance-induced injuries, Nijinsky, and wrestling 80 pounds of fabric.

I'm also excited to see what happens in TakerLab, a project from Liam Drain, Beth Wooten, Brian Mumford, Jeff Clenaghen, Zareen Price, Sara Daegling consisting of public workshops, performances, and site-specific conversations about critical texts. This is the aforementioned anti-capitalist reading group. Its organizers were also quick to point out that TakerLab's activities will be free, "unlike, say, grad school."

Here's the full list of grant recipients, after the jump:

2014 PRECIPICE FUND GRANTEES:

At the Drive-In
$3,000
William Rihel, Jeffry Richardson, Casey Keasler, Amy Fredericks
A series of outdoor events in the summer of 2015 that will present locally made video, film, performances and installations from various local curators. Programming will be presented in a 27-car parking lot in Northeast Portland, adjacent to a two-story building that serves as a projection screen.

Bcc: BrownHall
$5,000
Collaborators: Sharita Towne, Joy Davis, Diamond Ferguson, sidony o’neal, keyon gaskin, Alex Riedlinger
A collective of Black artists who will present interdisciplinary art programming to address the dearth of Black Art and creative spaces in Portland. This programming includes art and performance related gatherings, workshops, and an annual printed publication highlighting the works of artists and members of the largely marginalized Black community in Portland.

Composition
$3,000
Collaborators: Kayleigh Nelson, Grace Hwang
An alternative space in Chinatown, whose intimate setting presents a backdrop for exhibitions, performances, projects, workshops and lectures by local and national artists. Composition focuses on bringing together mediums to create a dialogue between visual art, performance, video, music, and writing.

Free Spirit News
$5,000
Collaborators: Joshua Kermiet, Corey Lunn, Raf Spielman, Jeffery Kriksciun
A free, local community newspaper that presents irreverent and engaging content, including comics, puzzles, poetry, jokes, doodles, and generally untethered expression by local artists. Inspired by early Mad Magazine, Zap Comics, and Mothers News, Free Spirit News presents irreverence and creativity as the “news of the spirit.”

I’d Rather Goya Robbed Me of my Sleep than Some Other Son of a Bitch
$2,400
Collaborators: Ruth Wikler-Luker, Jude Christian, Molly Gardner
A presentation of Rodrigo García’s performance text, Prefiero que me quite el sueño Goya a que lo haga cualquier hijo de puta, in the space of a visual art gallery. Curated by Ruth Wikler-Luker of Boom Arts and directed by London-based Jude Christian.

Habitat
$2,500
Collaborators: Kello, Emily Wobb, Desiree Mariscal
A visual art installation created through collaging video of Pacific Northwest natural scenes as a massive symmetrical mandala. The work will be presented in the Foster-Powell neighborhood and aims to inspire wilderness engagement.

HQHQ Project Space
$4,200
Collaborators: Andre Filipek, Johnny Ray Alt
An artist run exhibition and project space located in inner Southeast Portland, committed to presenting high caliber, multidisciplinary work by local, national, and international artists. The coming year of programming aims to enrich local art and artists’ relationships to de-centralized contemporary art ecologies and global networks.

Moving Out
$4,000
Collaborators: Tori Abernathy, Ross Young, Max Smith-Holmes
A series of programming organized by RECESS, composed of temporary exhibitions and events in the Portland area. This programming is motivated by a curatorial strategy focusing on the use of public, alternative, and under utilized spaces by West Coast artists who make work using radical aesthetics and thought.

Muscle Beach
$4,500
Collaborators: Flynn Casey, Tony Chrenka
A collaborative, nomadic curatorial project that focuses on exhibiting emerging and established artists from the Portland area and other regions. Working outside of the hierarchical gallery format and centralized space, Muscle Beach encourages the collaboration between artist and curator to create installations in different locations around Portland.

One Flaming Arrow
$5,000
Collaborators: Demian Diné Yazhi’, Kaila Farrell-Smith, Carlee Smith, Thomas GreyEyes, R.I.S.E (Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment)
An Intertribal music, art, and film festival dedicated to sustaining the creative practices of Indigenous Peoples of the americas. This two-week art and music festival aims to invigorate a network of Indigenous artists and musicians whose work will push against contemporary notions of Native art by disrupting the narrow categories established by western art institutions.

Physical Education
$5,000
Collaborators: Allie Hankins, keyon gaskin, Taka Yamamoto, Lucy Lee Yim
Artist-run workshops offering visual, contemporary performance artists, audiences, and curious individuals immersive modes to engage with performance work and their bodies. PE will organize and host reading groups, lectures, curated performances, aerobics classes and dance parties in an effort to inspire critical dialogues between artists of varying disciplines and practices while deepening their sense of embodiment.

Portland ‘Pataphysical Society
$3,000
Collaborators: Josephine Zarkovich, David Huff, Crystal June Rome, Lionel DiGiacomo
A domestic alternative arts space located in Old Town, offering exhibitions and events that take intelligent risks in the pursuit of the absurd and unachievable. The ‘Pataphysical Society will present programming over the course of 2015 bringing national and local artists together to present challenging, non-commercial works.

PREQUEL Professional Development Program For Artists
$4,000
Collaborators: Ryan Woodring, Alexis Roberto
A four-month artist incubator program consisting of workshops and guest critiques that aims to educate local artists in a practicum of professional development skills. PREQUEL includes a mentorship program between the participants and established members of the arts community, and will culminate in a group exhibition of the participants’ work.

Radical Imagination Gymnasium
$3,000
Collaborators: Travis Neel, Erin Charpentier, Patricia Vazquez, Zachary Gough
A multi-phase project presenting a series of public workshops and presentations, accompanied by a research based publication, that will examine, strengthen and articulate the radical imagination. Through their programming, the Radical Imagination Gymnasium will delve into how art, artists, and creatives from other disciplines reimagine and reproduce new political and social systems.

Surplus Space
$4,500
Collaborators: Gabe Flores, Maggie Heath
An alternative, artist run project space located in a residential home, offering interdisciplinary artists an opportunity to produce and show work that is in direct dialogue with current unfolding issues of social and political significance.

TakerLab
$4,000
Collaborators: Liam Drain, Beth Wooten, Brian Mumford, Jeff Clenaghen, Zareen Price, Sara Daegling
A series of public workshop and performance events organized by the IT503 collective intending to facilitate site-specific discussions that relate a critical text to a location in Portland. Through presentation, lecture, open conversation and entertainment, TakerLab will support an open dialogue about social and political issues.

they said don’t bring her home
$3,400
Collaborators: Sidony O’Neal, Ariella Tai
A month-long film and performance series that transgresses genre and illuminates performative avenues through which Black women navigate, assert and translate respect and respectability across location, medium, and memory. they said don’t bring her home will present multimedia programming, including film, dance and performance, to create a space for Black artists, educators and performers in the Portland area to discuss the issues of agency, respect and respectability.

The Visual Quality Objectives and Sound Management Collective
$5,000
Collaborators: Lisa Schonberg, Amy Wheeler Harwood, Leif J Lee
An arts collective that will create collaborative work drawing attention to pressing conservation issues affecting the Mt Hood National Forest. The collective will focus on sites that are being considered for logging and whose ecological importance warrants conservation, creating work in response that will be presented online, in print media, and several public exhibits.

Worksound International
$4,500
Collaborators: Modou Dieng, Jesse Siegal
A space in Southeast Portland whose exhibition programming focuses on diverse international practices. Worksound International’s programs will be accompanied by an online component and video series, aiming to place local and international communities in conversation with one another.

One of the panelists who helped assign the grants was Yoko Ott, who's been an innovative curator in Seattle for years. She described the selection process this way: "I learned so much about the thoughtful work artists are doing in Portland to create sustained energy and engagement through self-organized initiatives, and was quite impacted by the spirit of generosity and collegiality happening across the city.”