Right of Return USA Fellowship Launches 2023 Application Cycle
The annual, open-call $20,000 Fellowship award supports artists directly
impacted by the criminal legal system
December 2, 2022 (New York, N.Y.) — Right of Return USA Co-Founders Jesse Krimes and Russell Craig are proud to announce the fifth iteration of the Right of Return USA Fellowship in partnership with The Soze Agency. Right of Return is the first and only national fellowship dedicated to supporting and mentoring formerly incarcerated creatives. Generously funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Art for Justice Fund, and the Walton Family Foundation, the annual, open-call Fellowship awards a diverse group of six artists grants of $20,000 each to support artistic projects aimed at transforming our criminal legal and criminal immigration systems, and reducing their scale and reach.
Applications for the fifth cycle are now open.
“We believe that art has the potential to create change, and that artists who are directly impacted by the criminal legal system are best positioned to end mass incarceration by changing narratives and working in partnership with the larger movement to craft new interventions and social responses,” said Co-Founder Krimes. “Artists, with their ability to impact, shift and create culture, have always had a critical role to play in transforming our society into one that is more just. The push to end mass incarceration is no exception.” said Co-founder Craig.
The Right of Return USA Fellowship provides material resources and a community of artistic practitioners to formerly incarcerated people working in all artistic disciplines who are challenging our broken criminal legal system and advancing reforms. Throughout the year-long fellowship, the fellows will convene at retreats meant to foster community, develop political advocacy skills, and support the sustainability of their artistic practices. By positioning artists as changemakers, Right of Return prioritizes projects that address or reimagine one of the biggest moral and human rights crises of our time: the American carceral system, which holds approximately 2 million people behind bars, and nearly 4 million more in some form of state supervision.
Past Fellows’ projects have addressed issues ranging from the money bail system and wealth-based detention in states including Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama; solitary confinement in New York State; jail incarceration and ethical facility closure in New York City; the intersection of the criminal justice and immigration systems in Texas and New Mexico; life without parole and other draconian sentences in Pennsylvania; and the shackling of pregnant women in Philadelphia and across the country.
Fellows have also gone on to have work exhibited in and collected by major museums, including MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They have also been recipients of prestigious awards such as the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, Pulitzer Prize, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Awards, and Creative Capital fellowships, among others.
The call for applications can be found here.
For more information on the Fellowship program, please visit www.RightOfReturnUSA.com.
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ABOUT JESSE KRIMES
Jesse Krimes is a Philadelphia-based artist and curator whose work explores how contemporary media shapes and reinforces societal mechanisms of power and control, with a particular focus on criminal and racial justice. While serving a six-year prison sentence he produced and smuggled out numerous bodies of work, established prison art programs, and formed artist collectives. After his release, he co-founded Right of Return USA, the first national fellowship dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated artists.
Krimes’ work has been exhibited at venues including Palais de Tokyo, MoMA PS1, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Aspen Art Museum, International Red Cross Museum, Zimmerli Museum, and Aperture Gallery. His curatorial practice is focused on elevating other system-impacted artists, and he also successfully led a class-action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for charging formerly incarcerated people predatory fees after their release from federal prison.
Krimes has been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Pew Center for Art and Heritage, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Creative Capital, Art for Justice Fund, Independence Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. His work is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, OZ Art NWA, Kadist Art Foundation, The Bunker Artspace, and the Agnes Gund Collection. He is represented by Malin Gallery in New York.
ABOUT RUSSELL CRAIG
Russell Craig is a Brooklyn based artist whose work combines portraiture with sociopolitical themes. A self-taught painter who survived nearly a decade of incarceration after growing up in the foster care system, Craig creates art as a means to explore the experience of overcriminalized communities and reassert agency after a lifetime of institutional control. Craig’s work has been shown at MoMA PS1, Rutgers University, the Truth to Power exhibition during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and State Goods: Art in the Era of Mass Incarceration at Columbia University, among other venues. His work has garnered coverage in outlets including the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, Artsy, Artforum, ARTnews, the Guardian, and the New York Times. Craig is a 2018 Ford Foundation: Art for Justice fellow and his work is in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum.
ABOUT THE SOZE AGENCY
The Soze Agency is a social impact creative agency that is worker-owned. The agency is guided by their three core values of compassion, authenticity and equity. They develop an create strategic creative campaigns, produce branded content and curate and produce immersive experiences. They use their proximity to tell impactful stories that organize culture and foster sustainable change. Their client roster includes: Google, HBO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Immigration Law Center, FWD.us, and more.
For more information on The Soze Agency, visit wearesoze.com.
ABOUT RIGHT OF RETURN
The Right of Return Fellowship was co-founded in 2017 by justice-impacted artists Russell Craig and Jesse Krimes. It was established by artists, for artists as the first and only national initiative dedicated to supporting and mentoring formerly incarcerated creatives. Right of Return Fellows produces work that advances criminal and racial justice. The annual, open-call Fellowship is intended for people working in all disciplines, including visual art, performance, poetry, sound, media, and design. Each year, six fellows are given awards of $20,000 to support projects and new works that reflect the humanity of criminalized and incarcerated people and build public will for ambitious and visionary change. Additionally, Right of Return fellows and alumni convene annually to foster community, build advocacy skills, and work toward practice sustainability.
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