A Caribbean Arts Grant
Kingston Creative & The American Friends of Jamaica
CATAPULT has provided financial support to over 1500 artists across the Caribbean through relief grants, training programmes and residencies.
Awardees are showcased in the Caribbean Culture Network; an open directory that the public can access to find, hire and easily partner with creatives for international and local projects.
IMPACT
Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Saba, St. Barthelemy, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts & Nevis. St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, Suriname Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos Islands, US Virgin Islands
CATAPULT Awardees will also be featured on the Kingston Creative Database. This will be an open directory of Caribbean Creatives, their contact information and portfolios for the public to access to commission artists for projects. It is scheduled to be completed and published in 2022.
TESTIMONIALS
The Catapult Virtual lockdown Salon is even more powerful than I could have imagined. It serves as a platform for artistic knowledge but also makes us realize our weaknesses as isolated islands. We understand now much clearer how much the English, Spanish, French and Dutch cultural and language barriers separates us.
Lusette Verboom
(Art Director, Curacao)
I am convinced that we have a lot in common to share and innovative things to offer everyone, artists, critics and curators, in order to grow together and build a true community united around a strong and distinguished identity in the very hermetic and too elitist world art environment. Our cultures and resources are powerful, and inspire a great deal of cultural and economic activity without us being mentioned and valued. It is up to us to take charge of this problem ourselves through strong artistic initiatives. It is in this sense that I understood the full meaning of CATAPULT.
Richard-Viktor Sansily Cayol
(Multimedium Visual Artist and Urban Scenographer, Guadeloupe)
The Catapult Grant, Creative Online series, in collaboration with The American Friends of Jamaica,Kingston Creative and Fresh Milk Barbados, was a purposeful journey ordained at just the right time.This, for me, is stated as an irrefutable fact. That this platform and collaborative entities would choose to give creatives an opportunity, the encouragement and a small safe space in a corner of this new virtual world to challenge ourselves to continue to make art even/especially in this uncertain time of global reckoning, is a revolutionary act in itself.
Abeo Jackson
(Multi-Disciplined Artist, Trinidad & Tobago)
I cannot begin to express how grateful I am to gain the chance to produce more work and content for the community! This Grant found me at my best. I am writing to let you know that I am a Jamaican Trans woman who was a successful recipient for your Catapult A Caribbean Arts Grant thank you all for this great opportunity.
Emani Edwards
(Stylist, Jamaica)
MEDIA
SOURCE: St Vincent Times
300 Caribbean Artists have received support from CATAPULT Grant. The CATAPULT Caribbean Covid-19 Relief Arts Grant is in the second year of a partnership between Kingston Creative, the American Friends of Jamaica and the Open Society Foundations that has delivered over half a million US dollars in support to the arts community.
SOURCE: Linkedin – Andrea Dempster Chung
The CATAPULT Covid-19 Relief Arts Grant, is now in its second year and since late 2020 it has delivered over half a million US dollars ($81 million JMD) to 1,535 artists from the Caribbean, in the form of cash grants or capacity-building support.
SOURCE: Dominica News Online
The CATAPULT Arts Grant, valued at $210,000 USD, returns to support Caribbean creatives in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Arts Grant was born out of a collaboration between Kingston Creative and The American Friends of Jamaica and is partly funded by the Open Society Foundation.
