Kansas City, MO, May 9, 2024: Charlotte Street is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Cultural Producer Grants. This year, Charlotte Street has awarded 8 grassroots arts organizations and artist-run projects in Kansas City with general operating grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000.
Kansas City has long enjoyed a thriving and diverse ecology of low-budget artist-run spaces, collectives, groups and organizations. The collective impact of these grassroots operations to both our arts community and to the cultural landscape of Kansas City is enormous. Whether permanent or temporary, these groups nurture and grow artists creatively and become powerful engines of community. Through the Cultural Producer Grant program, Charlotte Street seeks to help build capacity, sustainability, visibility, and further funding viability for art operations with budgets under $50,000.
Through Charlotte Street’s juried selection process, 100% of funds for Cultural Producers is awarded in support of organizations whose mission and leadership will positively impact the advancement of BIPOC, LGBTQIA, or Disabled communities, in recognition of the oppression of those communities in the art sector and the gap that has created particularly in the Kansas City art scene.
The 2024 recipients include – KC Mutual Aid Free Skool, Manor Records, Poetic Underground, Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives, Union Library, Viva La Tinta KC, We Open Shop, and Whim Productions.
ABOUT THE RECIPIENTS
KC Mutual Aid Free Skool
The Kansas City Mutual Aid (KCMA) Free Skool aims to make art, craft, and culture accessible to all by creating and hosting free workshops by community members, for community members. We believe that cost should not be a barrier to learning, and that we all have something valuable to teach and learn from each other. Through the Free Skool, KCMA aims to empower and increase autonomy of participants, while fostering community among people from a variety of backgrounds.
Manor Records
Manor Records Fund is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that functions as a record label that turns profits into resources to support local musicians by helping to finance physically releasing music, pay for press coverage, and navigate booking shows.
Poetic Underground
At Poetic Underground KC (PUKC), our mission is to use poetry as a healing and community building tool to create a brave space where artists can gather in Kansas City. We support this mission through the removal of systemic barriers to access and a constant effort towards equity, education, and inclusion in the artistic community in Kansas City, Missouri. At PUKC, we host both open mics and educational workshops once a week, every week. We are also the home of Kansas City Poetry Slam, a monthly competitive spoken word event. We also put on monthly showcases to uplift community members in a non-competitive atmosphere. The Poetic Underground poetry community is a thriving community for poets of every age, ethnicity, sexuality, gender expression, ability, and income level.
The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives
The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives (RCMA) is an ad-hoc mobile media and research center that explores the correlation between Queer history and videotape, a medium on the edge of extinction. Operating out of Kansas City, Missouri since 2018, we have transformed everything from strip malls and lecture halls into media centers that serve rural, suburban, and otherwise underrepresented LGBTQ+ populations. RCMA’s mission is to enhance both the visibility and livability of queer communities in Middle America through a participatory archiving process. We do this by offering free on-site home video digitization services, maintaining an online archive, and coordinating screenings/events in public spaces. We believe that a barrier-free preservation process, paired with a creative approach to archive access, is what will allow future generations to know and celebrate the lives of our Queer ancestors.
Union Library
The Union Library, co-founded by Cyan Meeks and Stephen Cruz (second generation Mexican American) in 2017, is a low-budget, grassroots, artist-run underground space dedicated to offering affordable artist workspace, exhibition space, performance venue, independent filmmaking location, arts community building events, sound recording studio, and arts programming to serve our local underserved artist community who would not have access to these creative opportunities and experiences otherwise. Acting as a host for both individual artists and artist collectives from diverse groups to materialize their various disciplines (visual art, film, dance, performance art, immersive happenings, theater, sonic art, creative skill sharing, community building events), provides artists and performers the space and resources needed to obtain their goals and to build their individual followings while contributing to the cohesion of our local creative communities.
Vive La Tinta KC
Viva La Tinta KC is a celebration of the printmaking legacy – not only contained to fine arts but also as a tool for community building and social progress. We aim to keep the art of printmaking alive through community engagement and events.
We Open Shop
We Open Shop is an artist-run, 501c3 nonprofit organization. We are three professional women who work fulltime in a predominantly male industry as artists/designers, fabricators, and instructors. We have come together to share our knowledge and tool skills. Our collective recognized a need for a truly inclusive shop catering to underserved people; specifically women, trans, and nonbinary makers. WOS guides beginners and advanced makers/artists to bring their projects to fruition. We are dedicated to providing proper safety techniques, as well as providing an accessible shop for makers. We Open Shop is a brave space for all.
Photo by Joshua Alexandre Haines
Whim Productions
Whim Productions is Kansas City’s LGBTQ+ theater company. Since its first production as part of the 2011 KC Fringe Festival, Whim Productions has grown into an incubator for new queer writers and a bold presenter of LGBTQ+ narratives. Alphabet Soup: Theater from Queer Voices is a cornerstone of Whim’s programming and predominantly what the organization is known for. Whim produces two to four mainstage productions per year, as well as the Alphabet Soup short play showcase. In 2014, it plans to debut an incubator play development series, art exhibitions, and classes in playwriting and improv. Through this programming, Whim is actively building an ecosystem of queer playwrights and theater makers in the region and contributing to the
long-term sustainability of the organization as a whole.
ABOUT THE JURY
The Jury for the 2024 cultural producers was comprised of four local artist and organizers, including:Cody Boston – Director/Producer/Editor, Kansas City PBS and Co-Founder and Producer of Flew the Coop Sessions; Michelle Dreher – Owner & Operator, Two Tone Press; Andi Meyer – Founder and Producing Artistic Director, Tradewind ArtsandArtistic Associate, KCRep; and Eddie Moore – Keyboardist/Producer/Educator, Charlotte Street Fellow and previous Cultural Producer Grant Recipient.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community, and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $2.5 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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