The Catalyst Commission 2021 Awardees

The Catalyst Commissions is an initiative to catalyze civic participation and democracy via the power of art. It awards grants to artists who use art to engage and empower communities in New York City.

Our inaugral call received numerous applicants, with many noting that this call reminded them of their power of their voice and prompted them to further use art to engage their communities in social justice actions.

From many inspirational proposals, residents of the local communities, using a process designed to build a more inclusive and equitable commissioning process, recently chose five awardees. The five awarded projects are:

Jackson Heights Open Streets- Democracy in Action

Under Helen Quinn and Ondine Crispin, Dovecote Collective present a silk screen blitz on the streets of Jackson Heights to empower voters to envision their ideal neighborhood and to elect representatives who deliver.

Chinatown Yarn Circle

Led by Naomi Lawrence and Tina Lin, Chinatown senior citizens, youth, & civic allies knit and crochet flowers while engaging in civic participation skills building and civic engagement discussions. Over biweekly and monthly yarn circles, both in-person and virtual, we anticipate blooming voices and a powerful community-created visual mural..

TeenVote NYC

The Dream Unfinished is an activist orchestra using classical music to engage audiences in social justice. Their project is a youth-led campaign where teen classical musicians create digital materials to promote voter turn-out in the 2021 NYC elections.

Chinatown Icons

Rajiv Fernandez knows that words matter. Over the past year, anti-Asian rhetoric resulted in increased risk for the Asian-American community. Rajiv moves us away from xenophobic language via bilingual posters in Chinese and English to emphasize the value and civic potential of each individual. These posters will be wheatpasted, a visual reminder urging civic action.