Introducing the beneficiaries of our Creative Bursaries 2024
The Supporting Act Foundation
This year, we’re proud to distribute €800k to 32 artists and groups—our biggest cohort of grantees yet!
For the Creative Bursary program, we provided unrestricted grants of €10,000 to 20 emerging artists from marginalized groups who needed support.
Chosen by our independent jury, the cohort includes a DJ inspired by Afrofuturism, a photographer capturing LGBTQ+ stories, poets, painters, performers and so much more. You can read more about each recipient below.
Abdellah Rais blends traditional Berber music with modern house influences in his practice, which forms part of an innovative project to preserve traditions while exploring new musical frontiers. Rais also runs Berber Diffusion, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting Berber culture through the diffusion of traditional arts, language, and heritage. He collaborates with artisans, cultural practitioners, and scholars to pursue initiatives that include educational programs, cultural events, and artisanal workshops that celebrate the rich history and traditions of the Berber people. Rais’ aim is to create a vibrant platform that connects Berber communities globally, fostering cultural understanding, supporting sustainable development in Berber regions, and ensuring the continuity of this ancient culture for future generations.
Ayham Allouch is a Berlin-based sound designer, art director and multidisciplinary artist born in Damascus, Syria. Allouch’s works, which to date include sound installations, 3D video collaborations, and experimental films are often influenced by his own life experiences of displacement and migration. He aims to keep his spirituality and philosophy present in his output in order to create complex narrations which can evolve alongside his vision. As a sound artist, he utilizes field recordings and deconstruction, as well as using generative experimental modular patches to present complex concepts and create spaces for an array of feelings.
Bee McQueen is a performance artist, storyteller, and researcher with a practice rooted in poetry, emotional exposure, movement, persona, and the dissection of normative narratives. She enjoys working with emotional landscapes and is particularly interested in what is hidden or unsaid. McQueen’s practice relies heavily on audience participation; creating immersive work to encourage self-reflection and inspire change. McQueen is a socio-centric artist with a practice engaged in facilitation, youth work, and collaborative performance-making. The great importance placed upon community engagement is clear and visible throughout her work.
Gifty Amoateng is a Berlin-based textile designer whose work is deeply influenced by her German-Ghanaian heritage and vibrant surroundings. Amoateng experiments with various materials in order to create pieces that tell untold stories and immortalize emotions. Amoateng is working alongside another BiPOC artist to set up HYBRID – a gallery and co-working space in Berlin for BiPOC artists and designers. HYBRID’s mission is to boost visibility and create an inclusive, affordable space where creativity thrives. Amoateng was previously part of the “Hidden Pasts – Shared Futures” workshop series, funded by the Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Goethe Institute Namibia, exploring Namibia’s history and creating new artistic narratives.
Haiqing Wang’s work employs autobiography as a methodological approach. Wang juxtaposes personal and collective life experiences with fiction, pop culture, and historical events in order to address the marginalized narratives of the bodies and emotions of Asian women, queer politics, and collective memory. Navigating between reality and fiction allows Wang to switch between micro and macro perspectives while the autobiographical approach enables her to merge her own identity with those of the people she portrays, constructing the complexity of multiple roles and a transpersonal experience.
Jocelyn Arnold is in his final year studying painting at Edinburgh College of Art. His practice revolves around observation: the collecting of fragments of lived experience including memories, conversations, and dreams provides a starting point from which to create. Arnold’s finished work, often taking the form of large-scale paintings or handmade books, is deeply personal yet ambiguous; a metaphorical collage united by consistent themes of loneliness, yearning, queerness and nostalgia. Jocelyn is motivated by the desire to create space for honesty, empathy, reflection, and quietness in his work in the hope that others feel touched and seen.
Kani Lent's multidisciplinary practice sees them working mainly with film, sound, 3D animation, and installation. They make use of undercurrents of research and poetry to create networks of interdependent and inhabitable components. Through this work they reflect on the relationship between meaning and making, geopolitical aesthetic(s), perception, and information circulation.
Lauren Musa-Green is a student of film and television at The University of Edinburgh whose artistic practice aims to amplify marginalized voices, particularly through documentary work addressing racism, sexism, and classism. Musa-Green is passionate about diversifying the film industry and providing communities with the tools needed to share their stories on-screen. Key to Musa-Green’s approach is the belief that production roles carry significant influence and should be used ethically in order to foster social change within the industry.
Lele Bonizzi is an Italian photographer whose work delves into critical social issues, focusing on humanitarian crises, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration. A senior BFA photography major at Utah State University, Bonizzi has exhibited work both nationally and internationally. They are a 2024 USU Peak Fellow and the USU Robins Awards Talent of the Year. As a member of the scouts, Bonizzi pledged to leave the world better than they found it, and photography now serves as their tool to pursue that change, using the medium to make others feel seen and to share their stories.
Leroy Berger is a multidisciplinary designer and artist from the Sakha Republic, in Russia’s far north east. His work explores the culture of the Sakha people, traditions, and transformations through a variety of media including DIY publications, type design, illustration, and animation. Berger is interested in the intersection of human identities, and how gender, culture, geography and environment coalesce to create the unique context through which we see the world.
Lotte Siu is a UK-based illustrator born and raised in Hong Kong. Her artistic practice is dedicated to preserving the rich but vanishing culture and stories of Hong Kong. Through her evocative illustrations, Siu aims to protect and celebrate Hong Kong's threatened traditions, ensuring they endure for future generations. Passionate about cultural heritage, her work serves as a bridge between past and present, keeping the essence of Hong Kong alive.
Mahshad Rezai
Makossiri is a Kenya-born Berlin-based electronic music producer and DJ whose fearless approach to crafting club music transcends conventional genre boundaries. Makossiri's sound blends chaos and beauty, fusing gritty noise, evocative cinematic textures, and the hard-hitting pulse of hardcore and industrial techno with seamlessly interwoven African polyrhythms. Working within the digital realm, Makossiri utilizes a variety of electronic production tools and techniques to craft soundscapes that combine natural and artificial sounds, creating a distinctive auditory experience. Afrofuturism plays a key role in this reinterpretation of African culture and mythology through a futuristic lens. Makossiri’s goal is to create music that pushes boundaries and expands the global narrative of African music.
Masha Bolšakova is a graphic artist and illustrator from Narva, an Estonian city on the border with Russia, who is currently pursuing an architectural education in the Netherlands. Bolšakova’s passion lies in addressing the indifference that weakens the bonds between nationalities, languages, and people. Through her artistic and architectural journey she is learning to activate points of contact between different cultural groups through urban environments that reflect cultural diversity, working on social projects that explore emotional needs and create spaces for self-expression, promoting mutual inspiration and creativity.
Brazilian conductor and pianist Ramon Theobald made his debut as a conductor at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in 2023, was a member of the Académie de l’Opéra de Paris from 2021 to 2023 and a member of the Fabbrica Young Artists Program of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma from 2020 to 2021. Theobald’s artistic development and recent success have been made possible, he says, thanks to opportunities granted him by governments and reputable institutions. As a result he’s committed to working with European musical institutions to foster better opportunities for the next generation of young Brazilians to pursue their musical careers beyond their home nation.
Sarah Ama Duah is a Ghanaian-German artist based in Berlin. Duah practices sculptural appreciation as a gesture, performance, and form of narrative building, expressing and depicting Afro-diasporic histories. She is driven by an interest in spaces of discrepancy, examining the relationship between history and its manifestation in artifacts of cultural memory. Through a Black feminist lens, she centers the Black female body in her exploration of historical narration. Duah works in various mediums, including sculpture, performance, and dress.
Writer Sheyda Hashemi is currently studying philosophy and literature, seeking to expand her understanding of the human experience. Hashemi’s work explores the intersection of storytelling and philosophical inquiry, with a focus on creating narratives that challenge perspectives, inspire reflection, and provoke meaningful conversations about life, society, and our shared world.
Sylvie Pedra is a 22-year-old first-generation immigrant living in Paris, currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in graphic design. Her passion for art, design, and photography has driven her work which reflects her identity and daily influences, serving as a mirror for her experiences and interests. With authenticity as a core focus, Pedra seeks to use art as a means of expressing her vision and connecting with the world, sharing values, experiences, and her reasoning.
Thu Vân Nguyễn uses videos, photos, traditional crafts and collected objects to create installations which serve as a means of taking and creating space, exploring identity and diaspora. Nguyễn uses her practice as a way of documenting projects and collaborations pursued alongside creative friends and her community.
Tú Phạm is a visual artist born and raised in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City], Vietnam. Phạm approaches video-making through a combination of animated collages and chroma keying to create fantastical realities. His work explores themes of queerness and memory, depicting scenes of playful revery and inner dialogue translated to film. He is the co-founder of Saigon Experimental Film Festival which was created to promote interest in experimental film within Vietnam while simultaneously introducing diverse narratives from around the world.
Curious to learn more? Read about the 2024 announcement or our Impact Grant recipients.
