Minnesota Street Project Foundation announced the first California Black Voices Project grant winners, Indira Allegra, Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins, Rashaad Newsome, Toni Scott, and Leila Weefur (pictured in order from top left). Each of the five grantees will be awarded $10,000 and an exhibition in 2021 at the Minnesota Street Project’s 1275 Minnesota Street location and on the Project’s virtual site, Minnesota Street Project Adjacent.
The California Black Voices Project grantees were chosen through a jury process, comprised of four prominent art world professionals, Lava Thomas (artist), Dewey Crumpler (professor/artist), Karen Jenkins-Johnson (Jenkins Johnson Gallery), and Andrew McClintock (Ever Gold Gallery). Chosen from an outstanding applicant base of Black artists and curators from California, jurors considered all artistic mediums, including performance and film.
About Leila Weefur
Through video installation, Leila Weefur examines the performativity intrinsic to systems of belonging present in our lived experiences from the perspective of a trans-gendernonconforming Black artist. Weefur references Black colloquialisms as a source of reverence/contempt, combining concepts of the sensorial memory, abject Blackness, hyper surveillance, and the erotic. Their work aims to construct physical environments for which an audience can have a multi-sensory engagement, inviting viewers into the possibility of understanding Black narratives through the way bodies experience it. Weefur’s work is extended through publications, expanding audience access and reach beyond the gallery.
Between Beauty & Horror by Leila Weefur, 2018