For Immediate Release: Thursday, March 26, 2020
S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio provides artists Monique Muse Dodd and jackie sumell with unrestricted funds and resources for socially-engaged creative practices
BURNSVILLE, N.C. – S.O.U.R.C.E., an artist-centered and action-oriented studio focused on artistic approaches that connect people while addressing human challenges in bold, beautiful and poetic ways, announces recipients of the inaugural Corrina Mehiel Fellowship. The 2020 Fellows are artists Monique Muse Dodd (NYC/DC) and jackie sumell (New Orleans), with an Honorable Mention awarded to Anaya Frazier (Chicago). Dodd and sumell will each receive $10,000 plus partnership with S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio, and Frazier will be given $1,000 for Honorable Mention.
Founded by 2019 MacArthur Fellow and artist Mel Chin, S.O.U.R.C.E. is a 501c3 organization with a mission in its name: Sustained Operations Utilizing Resources for Culture, Communities and the Environment. S.O.U.R.C.E. supports artists and produces projects and practices rooted in community, experimentation, creative methodologies and social justice. S.O.U.R.C.E. takes a distinctive and iterative approach that allows for experimentation and breakthroughs.
Since its founding in 2017, S.O.U.R.C.E. has managed, produced and evolved the Fundred Project, an innovative and collaborative art engagement responding to the ongoing silent and invisible epidemic of lead poisoning. The Fundred Project connects hundreds of thousands of kids and communities from across the country to their Congressional Representatives in Washington DC, in an effort to raise awareness and advance actions to end lead poisoning.
The newly established Corrina Mehiel Fellowship further illustrates S.O.U.R.C.E.S.’s ongoing commitment to centering artists and artistic approaches that connect people, working in partnership with Mel Chin Studio, based in the mountains of North Carolina. Corrina Mehiel was a socially engaged artist, educator and art producer who died prematurely due to violence.
Led by S.O.U.R.C.E. Director Amanda Wiles, the Fellowship recognizes and supports women, trans and non-binary artists engaged in pressing social issues, specifically those that offer alternate visions and meaningful interactions through their creative practices.
“Currently, we are witnessing an unprecedented disruption to our society at a significant cost to the arts. S.O.U.R.C.E. believes it is critical to support artists, always, and especially now. Fellows jackie and Muse address social challenges through their work, and we know that in times of disaster, these injustices are amplified. Art enables us all to see, to process, to heal, and meaningfully connect in ways that propel empathy,” Wiles said. “We are humbled and excited to be sharing in practice and learning with the Fellows during this challenging time.”
S.O.U.R.C.E. founder Mel Chin said, “Corrina’s life was cut short in a violent assault. She was just beginning to fill the lives of others with generous actions of art and thoughtful configurations of social engagement. This award in her name is one way the exuberant creativity that personified her life will live on.”
“We are in a profound crisis now, yet others, some unresolved before this, also need to be addressed. S.O.U.R.C.E. has been mobilizing the artistic voices of people through art to address polarization and unseen health threats like lead poisoning,” said Chin. “It is evident that there is an ongoing crisis of understanding–facts are not being believed. Part of our job as artists is to engage the minds of people in original ways, providing options to connect with the world around them, revitalized.”
Working with individual artists, S.O.U.R.C.E is co-creating a program that meets their specific needs during the duration of the Fellowship. Participation is tailored, intimate and collaborative where experimenting, mutual exchange and learning is prioritized. Both sumell and Dodd will have a weeklong residency in North Carolina where each will have time to retreat, continue their practice, and connect with the S.O.U.R.C.E. team and greater community in conversation and activities.
“This fellowship is a breath of fresh air, as an emerging artist opportunities like this are few and far between. This fellowship has given me the freedom to experiment by removing the pressure to be perfect. The partnership and support of S.O.U.R.C.E. inspires me to grow authentically and learn collectively,” said Fellow Monique Muse Dodd.
“For Corrina, myself, and all those who believe(d) in something else, I will use the resources of this Fellowship to develop The Prisoner’s Apothecary, a mobile healing unit (or ‘Plantbulance’) that transforms the plants from The Solitary Gardens into medicine for communities most deeply impacted by the insidious reach of mass incarceration,” said Fellow jackie sumell.
The Fellowship recipients were selected from a pool of nominations made by a four-member cohort of curators and artists. The group includes Dawne Langford, producer and Founder of QuotaArts, Ryan N. Dennis, Curator & Art Programs Director at Project Row Houses, Joe Girandola, artist and President at Art Academy of Cincinnati, and Scheherazade Tillet, Executive Director at A Long Walk Home. Artists were selected based on demonstrated quality and power of existing work, engagement in pressing issues, risk taking and unique approach, synergy with S.O.U.R.C.E.’s values, and the potential impact of the Fellowship.
ABOUT THE 2020 FELLOWS
Monique Muse Dodd is a Brooklyn-based new media artist and independent curator. Through video, performance and installation, their work explores how Blackness exists in the near future, borrowing from personal and collective histories, both actual and imagined. Muse refashions histories in ways that uplift or even shift accepted realities. Through their work, Muse hopes to create space for Black bodies to be free, if only for a frame.
“My work centers the Black experience from a queer lens and every detail supports this. I am proud to say that all the film crews I have directed have been made up of entirely black queer and trans people. This makes sharing my vision feel safe(r). Every aspect of my work is intentional, everything is a ritual, from the type of fabric I use to the altar I honor before filming. The only thing I need to honor this way of working is the money to compensate my collaborators. I am interested in not only creating connections but creating legacy,” Dodd said.
Artist jackie sumell is a multidisciplinary artist and prison abolitionist who has spent the last two decades working directly with incarcerated people, most notably, her elders Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. Her work, anchored at the intersection of art, education, permaculture and social practice, has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe. jackie explores the interdependence of social sculpture, mindfulness practices, humanness and prison abolition.
“The Prisoner’s Apothecary would greatly benefit from the network, access and community that informs S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio as well as Mel Chin’s playful wisdom, transcending humor, and experience,” sumell said.
Honorable Mention Anaya Frazier Is an imaginer from the south side of Chicago, who seeks to manifest a better hood through her poetry. She attends Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory High School where she, like the school’s namesake, writes and performs her powerful poetry. Her work is in the legacy of the women in her family and it aims to make space for all of her identities. She considers herself an activist and a community organizer and has plans to create her own organization for youth of color.
“I’m really grateful that S.O.U.R.C.E. sees me and that we are pushing into the work that we are all doing,” Frazier said.
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