Started in 2022, Cinevolution’s Media Art Micro Grant supports emerging artists and arts workers of all ages who have limited access to traditional arts funding by providing small, flexible grants for self-directed learning, research, and creative experimentation. We are excited to announce the 5 amazing recipients who will be working on projects this fall!
Monica Cheema (she/her)
Monica Cheema (she/her) is a filmmaker raised on the lands of the Katzie, Semiahmoo and Kwantlen Nations. She works at the intersection of cultural research, harm reduction, community organizing, and arts education. Her most recent short film is an experimental portrait of Paldi, a historic mill settlement often described as a ghost town on the East Coast of Vancouver Island, now home to a rich community archive housing stories about labor, loss, discrimination, cultural memory, and resilience. Monica is most excited by films that transgress traditional film genre conventions, threading fiction and non-fiction to create something new and surreal in the process. She is incredibly grateful to be supported by Cinevolution Media Arts as she begins the research phase of her next project, an exploration of railways and family history.
Pablo Lopez
Originally from Mexico City, Pablo is a talented filmmaker with five short films, some of which have debuted at festivals in LA, Mexico City and Sweden. His original feature-length screenplay, Beedabi’be, Welcome Home, ended up as a quarter-finalist in Emerging Writer’s Drama Screenplay. Previously, he was a Script Coverage Reader with Integral Artists Talent Agency.
Doaa Magdy (they/them)
Doaa is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, decolonial educator, and writer.
Her art practice subverts the colonial norms of storytelling and aims at highlighting Black joy within the realms of the physical and digital spaces in film, dance, poetry and digital art. They are the Founder of Vancouver’s First BIPOC Horror Film Festival Horror in Seconds, launching on November 22, 2023. Horror in Seconds aims at broadening representation, accessible filmmaking and breaking the financial barriers BIPOC artists face.
Dylan Sunshine (they/them)
My name is Dylan Sunshine. I’m a Queer, Neurodiverse, Afro-Indigenous (Fijian and Solomon Islander) and Ashkenazi Jewish (Ukrainian, Polish, Russian) multidisciplinary artist. I shoot film photography, create queer leather goods, illustrations, block-printing, and am exploring ceremonial veiqia (traditional Fijian tattoo). My artistic and personal goals are to practice art as a conduit for cultural connection and self-discovery throughout the constellations of neurodiversity and queerness. Currently, the three themes I’m focussed on exploring through my artwork are; the power and freedom found in queer joy, my relationship to my Indigeneity as well as my responsibilities as an uninvited settler on stolen native land, and my relationship to being Jewish and Mixed Race.
Faune Ybarra (she/they)
Currently situated in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tseil-Waututh nations, Faune Ybarra is a diasporic artist/art worker, researcher and educator from Oaxaca and Mexico City. Due to constant relocation, Faune conceives of her body as a site of translation from whence they attempt communication with the other-than-human as an extended form of grieving. Current repositories of their work take the shape of “diasporic gestures”, weaving practices, photo-based objects, and arts programming for BIPOC Emerging Artists. Faune has developed, performed, exhibited, and spoken about her work across so-called Canada including Eastern Edge Gallery (St. John’s), Capture Photo Fest (Vancouver), The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery (St. John’s), Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) and Diasporic Futurisms (Toronto). They hold a BFA in Visual Arts from Memorial University of Newfoundland and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Simon Fraser University.