{"id":3419,"date":"2018-06-15T21:19:39","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T21:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=3419"},"modified":"2018-06-15T21:19:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T21:19:39","slug":"vcca-awards-alonzo-davis-fellowships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=3419","title":{"rendered":"VCCA Awards Alonzo Davis Fellowships"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) announces the award of its 2018 Alonzo Davis\u00a0Fellowships, which provide fully-funded residencies for outstanding American artists of African\u00a0or Latinx descent. Recipients Helina Metaferia and Natasha Oladokun will be in residence at\u00a0VCCA in July 2018. \u201cHelena Metaferia and Natasha Oladokun are strong artistic voices in their\u00a0fields and in the world of art,\u201d said VCCA Executive Director Joy Peterson Heyrman. \u201cWe\u00a0congratulate them and look forward to welcoming them to VCCA, where they will have\u00a0uninterrupted time to advance their work in a dynamic community of artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Helina Metaferia of Silver Spring, Maryland is an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of\u00a0performance, video, installation, photography, sculpture, and mark-making. Her work\u00a0investigates the role of the body as both subject and object in art, as well as transnational\u00a0identity and cultural hybridity within the context of her Ethiopian-American heritage. Her work\u00a0has been exhibited in solo and group shows at such venues as the Museum of African Diaspora
\n(San Francisco, CA), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), the Museum of Modern Art (Addis\u00a0Ababa, Ethiopia), Galeria Labirynt (Lublin, Poland), Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, NY), and\u00a0Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago, IL). Metaferia completed her MFA at the School of the Museum\u00a0of Fine Arts at Tuft\u2019s University and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.<\/p>\n
Poet and essayist Natasha Oladokun is a resident of Roanoke, Virginia. Her work has appeared\u00a0or is forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Harvard Review Online, Pleiades, Kenyon\u00a0Review Online, The Adroit Journal, Indie Film Minute, and elsewhere. She is Assistant Poetry Editor at story South and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Hollins University, her MFA alma mater.<\/p>\n
Renowned visual artist and educator Alonzo Davis came to VCCA for the first time in 1995\u00a0through a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts to increase minority\u00a0participation in artists residency programs. He joined the Board of Directors in 2004, and in\u00a02007 initiated a permanent, fully-funded, two-week residency supporting outstanding
\nAmerican writers, visual artists and composers of African or Latinx descent. Since its inception,\u00a0the Alonzo Davis Fellowship has been awarded to fourteen innovative artists, including poet\u00a0Eduardo C. Corral, the first Latinx winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, writer Sandra\u00a0Jackson-Opoku, whose articles, works of fiction, and other writings explore Africana literature,\u00a0travel, and African-American studies; visual artist Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, whose work
\ndocuments the social and economic relationships between Latin America and the United\u00a0States; and filmmaker Chanelle Aponte Pearson, winner of the 2015 IFP Gotham Awards\u00a0\u201cLive the Dream\u201d grant, whose directorial debut 195 Lewis was met with critical acclaim.<\/p>\n
VCCA is a unique Virginia-based organization of national stature and international impact.\u00a0VCCA\u2019s mission is \u201cproviding creative space for the world\u2019s best artists to create their finest\u00a0literature, visual art, and music.\u201d VCCA hosts over 400 artist-Fellows annually at its Mt. San\u00a0Angelo facility in Amherst, VA and the Moulin \u00e0 Nef Studio Center in Auvillar, France. The artists\u00a0who come to VCCA, whether emerging or established, are selected through competitive peer
\nreview on the basis of the important or innovative work they are doing in their respective fields.\u00a0Since its founding in 1971, VCCA has hosted 5,900 writers, visual artists, and composers.<\/p>\n