Maile Andrade is a multi-media artist and educator connecting ancestral and contemporary practices in her work.
The only way to get change is not through the courts or—heaven forbid—the politicians, but through a change of human consciousness and through a change of heart. Only through the arts […] can we really reach each other.
― Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo)
The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation is pleased to announce the awardees in 2023 for the SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts program.
EMPOWERMENT, ACTION, LIBERATION
The SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts program supports artist and community-driven projects responding to social change issues through a Native lens. The program focuses on efforts that are built upon community cultural assets, resilience, and strengths and draws increased attention to Native communities, perspectives and challenges, shifting a national narrative of invisibility, misunderstanding and misappropriation. SHIFT provides invaluable resources for project development, production and presentation for the artists and their collaborators.
Following extensive research and strategic planning, SHIFT refocuses NACF’s programmatic efforts to embolden Native artists and stakeholder voices, to nurture their brilliance, to draw upon the resilience of our ancestors, to uplift the innovative spirit in our Native communities, and ultimately to foster education and healing for ourselves and our allies. NACF understands that the work of Native artists is critical to the greater contemporary arts discourse, the stewardship of our planet, and equity in our greater society. SHIFT then builds a more intensive body of support to lift constraints and provide crucial time and space for the realization of the artists’ work in partnership with other collaborators.
The program includes multi-year services for Native artists, cultural practitioners, and community partners, and allows for artists to consider more expansive projects and broad-based platforms for community engagement and presentation, while continuing to drive essential conversation on national and global issues.
We encourage artists who have experience developing projects that are focused on engaging communities and the public to address community issues; building upon community strengths; and partnering with organizations to develop and present the work to apply.
Click here for more information about the SHIFT program’s eligibility, application process, criteria, and FAQ.
The SHIFT grant is currently closed for applications. Please check back in early 2025 for information about the next open call.
2023 SHIFT AWARDEES
Growing Thunder Collective
Growing Thunder Collective represents three generations of highly accomplished, well-respected, and prolific Dakota/Nakoda bead and quill artists.
Lani Hotch
Lani Hotch is a master Ravens Tail and Chilkat weaver and tribally designated Culture Bearer dedicated to intergenerational teaching and cultural revitalization.
Anthony Hudson & Felix Furby
Anthony Hudson is an artist and writer and well known as Portland, Oregon’s premier drag clown, Carla Rossi. Felix Furby is a linguist, carver, Indigenous historical researcher, and Indigiqueer advocate.
Leilehua Lanzilotti
Leilehua Lanzilotti is a Kanaka Maoli composer and sound artist whose practice explores radical indigenous contemporaneity, integrating community into the heart of projects.
Christen H. Marquez
Christen Marquez is a Director, Producer, and Videographer who creates films that spark empathy and bridge understanding between communities.
Warren Montoya
Warren Montoya is a muralist and multidisciplinary artist, entrepreneur, youth development facilitator, teacher, and farmer.
Marie Watt
Marie Watt is an interdisciplinary artist whose work offers a platform for community engagement and sparks critical conversations around humanity and our understandings of the past, present, and future.
Will Wilson
Will Wilson is a photographer whose imagery deals with complex environmental and social issues, Native identity, and the juxtapositions of the past, present, and future.
Stephen Qacung Blanchett
Stephen Qacung Blanchett is a performing artist, a culture-bearer, an art and culture educator, and an advocate for equity and inclusion.
Sabra Kauka
Sabra Kauka is a cultural practitioner and teacher on Kauai, fostering the sustainability and perpetuation of Native Hawaiian traditions by sharing her knowledge with future generations.
Rosy Simas
Rosy Simas is a transdisciplinary and movement artist who creates work for stage and installation.
Michael Begay & Raven Chacon
Michael Begay is a Navajo composer of chamber music, experimental sound, Native American flute, and metal music. Raven Chacon works at the crossroads of contemporary classical music, visual art and installation, using conceptual graphic scores that underpin his compositions.
Raiatea Helm
Raiatea Helm is one of Hawaiʻi’s preeminent female vocalists and keeper of the Hawaiian falsetto tradition (“leo kiʻekiʻe”) of the early to mid-20th century.
Postcommodity
Postcommodity is an artist collective at the sharp edge of multi-disciplinary arts practice, interrogating systems and institutions with a wide array of methodologies and conceptually-based work.
New Red Order
New Red Order is a public secret society whose video and performance deploys a blend of satire and sincerity, toward dismantling ongoing effects of settler colonialism.
Moses Goods
Moses Goods is an actor, storyteller, playwright, and one of Hawaii’s most prominent theater artists.
Larissa FastHorse
Larissa FastHorse is a theater maker and performing arts advocate, illuminating Indigenous processes of artmaking, storytelling, and perspectives on contemporary Native life.
Emily Johnson
Emily Johnson is a land and water protector and an activist for justice, sovereignty, and well-being.
Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick
Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick is an artist, curator, and educator whose work explores the intersection of Native/non-Native cultures and identities within a vexed sociopolitical climate.
Ciara Lacy
Ciara Lacy is a filmmaker whose work centers on points of pressure in the Native Hawaiian community, such as incarceration, houselessness, and the needs of children.
Anna Hoover
Anna Hoover is an activist, artist, writer, director, and filmmaker who produces documentary, fiction, and art films focused on her home state of Alaska.
