PORTLAND, ORE — The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has awarded $665,595 in project grants for calendar year 2016, including 54 grants to nonprofit organizations and 77 grants to individual artists in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties.

“Once again, the region’s artists and nonprofit organizations have brought a tremendous variety of interesting projects to our attention,” said executive director Eloise Damrosch. “We received a record number of applications, 359 total, and although we couldn’t invest in them all I am truly excited about the 131 projects that we were able to fund.”

A summary of every funded project can be found at www.racc.org/2016projectgrants. Some examples of projects supported within each discipline include:

• Dance projects included new solo works and ensemble pieces, performance festivals, and a competitive residency program at New Expressive Works, which will support eight diverse choreographers with space, professional feedback, and a showcase performance.
   
• Literature projects ranged from the sixth annual arts journal “Leaf Litter” produced by Signal Fire to memoirs, humorous essays, chap books and short fiction. Examples including a new book by Laura Moulton with her collaborator Ben Hodgson about the evolution of a bicycle-powered street library, its patrons who live outside, and the way literature can form a bridge between people from many walks of life, as well as a long-form nonfiction essay by Paul Martone entitled “Denny’s 1996” examining racial discrimination in the 1990s.
   
• Media Arts covers audio, film and video works, from the avant-garde to documentaries to film festivals. This year, supported projects include a documentary by Lenore Eklund called “Food As Medicine,” a web series by Pamela Chipman looking to engage the person on the street with conversations about art, and Jennifer Lamastra’s stop motion animated short of a sad paper girl who encounters 1000 swirling origami paper cranes.
   
• Multi-Discipline projects support a wide range of performances and presentations that combine and transcend specific categories. Liminal will present a “film-play hybrid” in real time; Luciana Proaño will produce a dance, poetry, music performance inspired by Peruvian folklore and photography; CymaSpace is producing six artistic showcases that facilitate accessible performing arts for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community; Douglas Detrick is leading creation of a collection of musical-storytelling episodes for his chamber-jazz quintet inspired by Melville’s Moby Dick.
   
• Music includes a variety of genres from ukulele and tango music to ragas and opera. Okaidja Afroso will work on and release a new album in collaboration with innovative musicians from his native Ghana, and Maria Garcia and her partner Momoko Muramatsu will record and release a new CD as XX Digitus Duo at a two piano/four hand event.
   
• Theatre projects can be published scripts like “Heathers: the Musical” (Staged! Musical Theatre) or works-in-progress like Dmae Roberts’ new play “The Courtesan.” They reflect local issues such as the city of Vanport (Damaris Webb to produce and direct “Cottonwood in the Flood” by local playwright Rich Rubin) and classic inspirations (Cerimon House to support a re-imagined Shakespeare story in a playwright residency project with Jennifer Le Blanc).
   
• Visual Arts projects will include documentation of the endangered oral history of Palestinian folk, fabric and fiber arts by Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim, black and white paintings by Ty Ennis that explore the day-to-day life of an artist and father, and an in-depth photography project by Geoffrey Hiller documenting the TriMet #75 bus route from St. Johns to Milwaukie. Japanese Garden Society of Oregon will present an exhibit about Japan’s most influential contemporary architect, Kengo Kuma, and Blackfish Gallery has a month-long exhibit and lecture by Native American artist James Luna coming in 2016.
   
• Community Participation & Access projects support arts programs and services that involve community participants directly. Sisters of the Road will facilitate a short 10 minute film on homelessness in Portland, Hollywood Senior Center with host a writing and photography project between seniors and youth from Beaumont Middle School, and Congregation Beth Israel is receiving their first RACC grant to support their annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day evening Shabbat event. Other examples of community based projects will bring the Artosaur out into the community (Christine Martell), engage youth in the written, spoken and sung word to address social justice and personal transformation (Renee Mitchell), and connect artists and day laborers (Patricia Vazquez Gomez).

This year’s project grants are made possible by both public and private funding sources, including the City of Portland, Multnomah County, Clackamas County, Washington County, Metro and the Oregon Arts Commission. RACC’s first annual summer fundraising gala, In the Garden of Artistic Delights, brought in nearly $35,000 to fund some of the project grants for individuals, and RACC’s workplace giving program, Work for Art, contributed $27,000 to fund some of the project grants for organizations.

In addition, an anonymous donor continues to provide special funding for an annual “Innovation Prize” of $2,500. This year’s award for outstanding, innovative, media-oriented project goes to Brenna Murphy for experimenting with virtual reality as an artistic medium and building a series of virtual spaces with digital sculpture installations titled “Realms.”

RACC’s peer review process involved 43 volunteers who served on 12 different panels organized by discipline. They were guided by staff during the months of October, November and December, evaluating proposals based on artistic merit, audience development and financial accountability. Most volunteer panelists (91%) served on a RACC grants panel for the first time. The RACC Board of Directors approved all panel recommendations on December 16.

More detailed summaries of each grant are available atwww.racc.org/2016projectgrants.

RACC project grants for individuals, calendar year 2016

Note: (*) denotes Clackamas County applicants, and (**) denotes Washington County based applicants.  All other applicants are based in Multnomah County. AF = Artistic Focus and CPA = Community Participation & Access.

RACC project grants for organizations, calendar year 2016

Note: (*) denotes Clackamas County applicants, and (**) denotes Washington County based applicants.  All other applicants are based in Multnomah County. AF = Artistic Focus and CPA = Community Participation & Access.