In honor of Pride Month, we invite you to dive into the journeys of LGBTQ+ artists and organizations in Brooklyn who play a vital role in the spirit, vibrancy, and authenticity of our borough. The arts have always been integral to gay rights activism and the pursuit of equality and justice around the world. Brooklyn Arts Council is honored to continue to support the voices and visibility of the LGBTQ+ arts and culture community through our grants, fiscal sponsorship, and other programs each year.
Scroll down to learn about some of our queer and trans 2021 Community Arts Fund grantees as well as other opportunities for LGBTQ+ artists.
Noah Schamus
2021 Film/Video Brooklyn Arts Fund Grantee
”SUMMER SOLSTICE”
Noah Schamus is a Brooklyn-based director, editor, and writer, passionate about telling stories that deepen and humanize queer and trans narratives. Their short film work includes “Kind Of” “Across, Beyond, and Over,” “Here With You,” and “Chemistry of Mood.” This work has been presented at film festivals including BFI Flare, Outfest, Inside Out, NewFest, Indie Memphis and New Orleans Film Festival (where their short film, “Chemistry of Mood” garnered an Honorable Mention for Best Performance by Naian Gonzalez Norvind). “Across, Beyond, and Over,” co-directed with Brit Fryer, was featured on NoBudge and is a Vimeo Staff Pick.
Their current project is a narrative short film titled “SUMMER SOLSTICE”. Trans man AJ’s idyllic summer house-sitting gig in the country is thrown off-course when his straight, cisgender, and somewhat clueless friend Eleanor makes an impromptu visit. In just a few days together, they discover that their once natural connection is more tenuous than they would like to believe.
HEATHER MARÍA ÁCS & Femmepower productions
Learn more about FemmePower Productions on their website, Instagram, and Facebook.
Still from FemmePower Productions' award-winning film, FLOURISH (Best LGBTQ Short, Big Apple Film Fest NY, 2020), starring Justin Sams (pictured), Director Heather María Ács, Director of Photography Sarah Tricker. Dress designed by Diego Montoya (Ru Paul's Drag Race).
2021 Film/Video Brooklyn Arts Fund Grantee
“The Space”
FemmePower Productions is a Brooklyn-based media company creating and curating original, queer content. FPP is producing and anthology series of narrative short films and a forthcoming series about intersectional, queer radical communities. We believe representation matters and commit to creating the change we want to see in media and culture. FemmePower Productions commits to intersectional equity on screen and behind the scenes.
FemmePower Productions’ current project is called “The Space”. This is a radically fun, episodic dramedy where a group of lovable, queer misfits fight to save their beloved Brooklyn club from eviction. The show follows a constellation of multiracial, gender-expansive “queerdos” who try to keep the party going while falling in love, facing addiction, tackling non-monogamy, and simply paying the rent.
Founder of FPP, Heather María Ács, is an award-winning filmmaker, performer and cultural worker whose work explores queer, radical subcultures, punk/d.i.y. aesthetics, and femme-inine identities. Her directorial debut, Flu$h, was an official selection of Outfest (LA), Newfest (NYC), and Oaxaca IFF (Mexico), as well as Seattle QFF, Contrast FF (Austin) and Long Beach QFF. Her second film, Flourish, premiered at Outfest Fusion LGBTQ People of Color Film Festival in Los Angeles (March 2020). She has shadowed directors on shows for Amazon, Netflix, Apple TV, and Showtime. She is the Co-Founder of Heels on Wheels, a queer femme-inine spectrum, gender-expansive performance collective, and winner of the LAMBDA Literary Award for Glitter & Grit, a queer performance anthology.
Ania Upstill & Butch Mermaid Productions
Learn more about Butch Mermaid Productions on their website and Instagram.
Learn more about Proud Voices HERE.
2021 Multidisciplinary Brooklyn Arts Fund Grantee
“Proud Voices”
Butch Mermaid Productions is a theatre company that aims to uplift and celebrate LBGTQIA+ voices. They believe that theatre is more than a physical building and focus on imagining the live experience for ordinary and extraordinary times.
The inaugural Proud Voices festival invited participants to take a walk around the queerly iconic West Village in New York City, discovering a unique audio track by a BIPOC LGBTQIA+ artist at each listening location marked on our digital map. As they visited bars, stores, coffee shops and restaurants, participants found an exclusive QR code at each location that allowed them to stream a song, poem, or auditory piece. We aimed to get people out of their apartments, helping to revitalize small businesses and engaging folks with New York City’s brilliant queer artists New York City. And one of the best things about it, is that audience members could do this safely in the COVID-19 era - with a mask, 6 feet apart, alone or with the people in their bubble! This festival was inspired by Pride month, which was birthed in 1969 at the Stonewall Riots, led by Black and POC queer folks. Their inaugural PROUD VOICES was therefore a fundraiser for Queer organizations benefiting the Black and POC LGBTQ+ community.
Proud Voices 2021 is a multi-city, interactive queer audio festival redefining togetherness by safely celebrating the diversity of queer expression. Proud Voices showcases the beauty and diversity of queer artists and stimulates the queer economy by highlighting queer-owned businesses through a unique form of safe community engagement. This year, the festival takes place in Austin, Brooklyn, and Auckland. In each city the festival revolves around "stops", which are a total of eight participating queer-owned and queer-friendly small businesses. At each stop, participants can discover an exclusive QR code that allows them to stream a song, poem, or auditory piece from a local queer artist. Reconfiguring what a festival can be — Proud Voices will be ongoing throughout Pride month, so folks can participate at their own pace. Proud Voices is brought to you by Butch Mermaid Productions, Thee Gay Agenda, and Embrace Austin.
GRANTS & OPPORTUNITIES FOR LGBTQ+ ARTISTS
QUEER|ART|PRIZE
$10,000
Made possible through Queer|Art’s ongoing partnership with HBO, Queer|Art|Prize presents two $10,000 awards to LGBTQ artists based in the United States: one for Sustained Achievement and the other for Recent Work. With a Nominating Committee of 20 esteemed arts professionals from around the country, Queer|Art|Prize confirms the impact of our programming and support on a national level.
Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant
$7,000
The Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant is an annual grant awarded to self-identified lesbians for making visionary moving-image art. Work can be experimental animation, experimental documentary, experimental narrative, cross-genre, or solely experimental. Applicants must be based in the U.S. This grant was established by Hammer in 2017 to give needed support to moving-image art made by lesbians. The grant is supported directly by funds provided by Hammer’s estate and administered through Queer|Art by lesbians for lesbians, with a rotating panel of judges.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists
$7,000
The Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists is a $7,000 grant awarded to US-based artists for making cutting-edge dance and movement-based performance work. Women(+): The Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant employs an expansive definition of the word “woman." Named in honor of visionary dance curator, critic, and educator Eva Yaa Asantewaa, the grant seeks to highlight the important contributions queer women have made to dance throughout history.
Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists
$10,000
Deadline: June 30, 2021
Image by Mariette Pathy Allen.
Developed and named in partnership with Mariette Pathy Allen, Aaryn Lang, and Serena Jara, this $10,000 grant, awarded to draw attention to an existing body of work, sheds light on the under-recognized contributions of Black trans women visual artists and provides critical support to their continuing work. Winning artists will receive additional professional development resources and further guidance to bolster their creative development in the field. The Illuminations Grant is made possible entirely through support provided by visual artist Mariette Pathy Allen, whose body of photographic work over the last forty years has been squarely focused on expanding cultural consciousness around gender and transformation.
Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers
$10,000
The Robert Giard Grant for Emerging LGBTQ+ Photographers is made possible entirely through support provided by The Robert Giard Foundation. Previously known as The Robert Giard Fellowship (2008-2018), the grant is named in honor of photographer Robert Giard (1939-2002), a portrait, landscape, and figure photographer whose work focused on LGBTQ+ lives and issues. The grant focuses on supporting emerging LGBTQ+ photographers whose projects address issues of sexuality, gender, or LGBTQ+ identity.