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KANSAS CITY, Mo, July 23, 2020: As Kansas City continues to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic with new public health protocols, local artists are gathering communities with new, DIY public-facing arts projects. Charlotte Street Foundation has commissioned 10 Kansas City-based artists to create programs and collaborative events that encourages community building and art making while respecting a safe distance from other neighbors.

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Each local artist receives $500 stipends to put together their proposed program in Kansas City by the end of 2020. A majority of projects will take place in the late summer/early fall of 2020. Project updates and online promotion of these programs will be featured on Charlotte Street’s social media channels through the rest of the year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Charlotte Street Foundation has ceased all programming within its new headquarters space throughout the rest of 2020. This call allows Charlotte Street to encourage arts programming in community spaces throughout the Kansas City metro area.

“In designing this program, we wanted to provide support for the artistic projects that are happening now that have grown out of the need created by the restrictions of the pandemic,” said Amy Kligman, Executive/Artistic Director of Charlotte Street. “Although we are having to work within strange parameters in this moment, artists of all kinds are continuing to create and that work is inspiring and generating hope for the public in light of this urgent state of emergency. We hope this opportunity can honor their efforts in some small way.”

LIST OF COMMISSIONED ARTISTS

· Katherine Brennan – Cliff Drive dance exploration
A dance exploration and nature walk through of Cliff Drive with public tours, in collaboration with Oscar Trujillo

· Onnissia HarriesGods of Love and Beauty: Aphrodite and Adonis
Window display and mailbox questionnaire at Happy Apple Café on Troost Ave

· Melinda HedgecorthDrive-in for Art
A drive-in theater performance featuring live flamenco from local group Siento y Vivo Flamenco in the Northland

· Kiosk GalleryBeyond 2020 Vision at Kiosk
A regional open call for a visual art mail series

· Stefanie NollGreen
A mixed media performance livestreamed from Greenwood Social Hall

· Harold Smith – digital magazine
Curated digital magazine featuring visual images from local black artists in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd

· SocialScope – digital video series
A trans women of color video series focused on conversations surrounding artistic survival, resiliency, and navigating safety in Kansas City in relation to COVID-19, racism and transphobia

· Elizabeth StehlingPAUSE
Contemporary dance film in Kansas City public parks, with original music composed by local artist Stacy Busch.

· Julia VeringRe-Enactments
A multimedia performance featuring adults with dementia as actors via video projection in front of nursing home windows

· Jason ZehWhispering Distance
Digital livestream of experimental music performance from Jason Zeh and Ithaca, NY artist Sarah Hennies

Artists were selected through a jury panel that consists of active members within Kansas City’s artist community including:

– José Faus, multidisciplinary artist, poet, and performer
– Kreshaun McKinney, Manager, Audience Engagement, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
– Raechell Smith, Director, H&R Block Artspace

Charlotte Street Foundation values an equitable, diverse, and inclusive art community, which we interpret as all artists having fair access to the tools and resources they need to realize their artistic endeavors. We acknowledge structural inequities that have excluded individuals and communities from opportunity based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, age, and geography, and strive to counter those inequities in our work. We encourage panelists and selection committees to actively consider and seek to recommend a diverse pool of applicants as finalists and recipients of these awards and all Charlotte Street Foundation programs.

ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street identifies the needs and fuels the evolution of an ever-changing multidisciplinary arts ecosystem, acting as its primary provocateur. Charlotte Street cultivates the contemporary, the exceptional, and the unexpected in the practice of artists working in and engaging with the Kansas City art community. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $1.1 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects, and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.

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