Queer and Trans BIPOC Artist-Scholar Graduate Student Collective

Executive Summary:

Queer and Trans BIPOC Artist-Scholar Graduate Student Collective project brings together a collective of seven graduate students & artists in interdisciplinary fields to support our artistic and academic studies. The collective members are a part of UW’s English department, Communications department, Gender Women Sexuality Studies department, DX arts department, and Dance department.  Along with being able to continue creative scholarship through collaborative workshops and conversation meetings, we will provide public talks/ art viewings, workshops and consultations to other graduate & undergraduate students and to the wider Seattle public for the sake of encouraging creative scholarship for the next generation of academics, both in the university and beyond. We aim to secure a studio near campus, or somewhere accessible to most UW members through transit (public or private), to house our discussions, public talks/viewings, consultations, and workshops. In total, we are requesting $29,950 to bring this project to UW so that we can make an impact of personal and communal sustainability to combat rigid academic settings with creativity. Many collective members’ projects focus on environmental sustainability by looking at environmental food practices, the detrimental building of cities and gentrification, and the imaginative ways we can build new worlds for liberatory and safe futures.

Student Involvement:

There are many ways in which our project encapsulates student involvement including (1) residencies open to both graduate and undergraduate students to work on collaborative projects (2) Graduate to undergraduate peer project-based mentorship. (3) workshops and campus talks open to all UW faculty and students (4) funding opportunities for undergraduate students for resource support for their proposed creative projects and material/supply grants. Each of these goals will be organized and executed through the collective work of the collective.

Education & Outreach:

Funding his project will allow us to build healthier, more equitable and diverse communities in academia, by offering support to undergraduate artist-scholars  who are early on in their academic career and don’t have adequate support and understanding for how to infuse their arts into their scholarship or the other way around.

In order to foster this environment, we will provide mentoring opportunities where undergraduates are paired with a  collective member for support, discourse, and educational feedback regarding specific projects and artistic philosophy alike. In addition to this, there will be opportunities for learning through external artist workshops and visits, and assistance with art project planning and funding.

We have a working  plan to advertise with all of the art departments, as well as with the queer center on campus for focused undergraduate mentoring support. The external artist visits, and/or workshops will be open to the university community at large, and therefore will be advertised at a wider scale.

Environmental Impact:
  • Food
  • Community Development
  • Cultural Representation
  • Social Justice
Project Longevity:

Our project is concerned with creating site-specific performance, theater, visual art, and other arts-based public facing work to address issues of social justice and inspire deep self-introspection. The “longevity” is measured by the ability of our work to encourage social and personal mobilization amongst our audiences and witnesses, rather than creating a specific material project to live on forever. The funds, as detailed in our application, will be delegated to each collective member and selected undergraduate student to see their specific projects through. While the collective of people do not dissipate, the projects themselves will be hinged on the budget we are allotted, and when that budget is used to its full capacity, we would still have done the necessary work we were called to do given the resources. Our work under the “Sustainability Grant” would be complete, but our work as artists, creatives, and performers continue on where the resources reside.

Environmental Problem:

This collective seeks to build a sustainable community for those who’s identities, scholarly interests, and creative mediums are not adequately supported in our disciplines, yet our creative mediums and identities are intricately tied to the contribution we intend to make in our fields; thereby, calling attention to a need to build a space for us to imagine what a new wave in academia can look like when queer and trans BIPOC peoples are able to contribute with our imaginations.

Pairing this aspiration with conversations about environmental sustainability has highlighted that subjects like community protection , food accessibility , housing practices, and  environmental care are subjects that are very much tied to or factors that are considered for the demographic that we are hoping to support. We hope to create a space for dialogue around these subjects, perhaps offset the impact they have, or amplify in other cases, and when it feels meaningful to support the creation of art that is environmentally based or focused.

Explain how the impacts will be measured:

There are many aspects to this project that will require us to measure impact differently. For the public programing, like talks, art viewings, and consultation, we will monitor impact by keeping track of participation and feedback forms. That is, we will keep a log detailing who showed up to events, why they participated, and what they took away from the events. For our own works and workshops, we will keep track of the progress through goal setting. Each workshop and round-table meeting (where we discuss our works and their scholarly impact), we will set communal and personal goals to be completed by the next meeting. These goals will ensure that we stay true to our commitments to provide creative scholarship to UW’s and the greater Seattle communities. We will be able to provide a log of goals with details about how we were able to keep such goals.  

Total amount requested from the CSF: $29,950
This funding request is a: Grant
If this is a loan, what is the estimated payback period?:

Budget:

Budget Items for Collective proposed expenses
ItemCost per ItemQuantityTotal Cost
Funding Undergraduate Students’ projects 3003900
Funding the collective projects and materials 100077000
Studio Space and equipments 16,400
Compensation for workshop collaborators 30061,800
Compensation for collective members45073,150
Residency7001700

Non-CSF Sources:

Project Completion Total: $29,950

Timeline:

Proposed Timeline (please see attached supplement for details)
TaskTimeframeEstimated Completion Date
initial planning; outreach; placing events on calendars 3 monthsSpring 2022
The start of activities for collective 3 monthsSummer 2022
Continue quarterly activities 3 monthsFall 2022
Finish up year of the collective 3 monthsWinter 2023