NEW YORK, NY.- Today, the
Asian Cultural Council, the preeminent not-for-profit, New York-based organization that advances international dialogue through arts and cultural exchange between Asia and the United States, announces its 2022 fellowship and grant recipients, awarded by its New York office.
Founded in 1963 by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) has enabled more than 6,000 exchanges between artists, humanities scholars, and specialists, investing more than $100 million in support across 16 artistic disciplines and 26 countries/regions to date. ACC has connected creators and thinkers to peers in countries including China, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the U.S. for nearly 60 years, effectively cultivating cultural bridges across global borders. ACC is headquartered in New York City with global offices in Hong Kong, Manila, Taipei, and Tokyo.
Headed by Executive Director and ACC alumna Judy Kim, who has led strategic and organizational development in arts and cultural institutions for more than 25 years, ACC provides program services and, in 2022, direct grants between $10,000-$60,000. ACC awarded more than $1 million in grants for 2022 across all offices.
“The importance of ACC’s work goes beyond direct grants—our support for grantees encourages exploration, curiosity, and understanding. We believe in the power of shared experiences and that the arts define our humanity,” said Executive Director Judy Kim.
The 2022 Fellowship highlights include:
2022 Individual Fellow Kayla Briët, an artist, filmmaker, and composer who explores themes of belonging through varied mediums of storytelling. In music and live performances, she shares stories by mixing electronic beats with the strings of a Chinese guzheng zither, vocals, and live looping—an exploration of her Prairie Band Potawatomi, Taiwanese Chinese, and DutchIndonesian heritage. Briët’s fellowship focuses on researching and exploring Taiwanese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian diaspora communities, histories and culture, and truth and reconciliatory practices in Taiwan and beyond. This research, both online and in-person, aims to explore multi-disciplinary expressions of Asian identity and Indigenous futurism. Briët’s work has been exhibited by the Smithsonian Institute, MoMA, Adobe, National Geographic, PBS and, recently, Briët was named a 2018 MacArthur Foundation x Sundance New Frontier Fellow and 2017 TED Fellow, among other accolades.
2022 New York Fellow Marin Naruse is a “shimauta” singer, practicing the traditional music of Japan’s Amami Islands. She has won multiple awards and actively collaborates with various contemporary artists, such as jazz pianists, orchestras, and rakugo players, to explore the expanded possibilities of shimauta. Naruse was named an official Minyo Ambassador by the Japan Folksong and Dance Foundation; she regularly delivers seminars and lectures about shimauta music. By gaining insight into U.S. ethnic music preservation practices, Naruse hopes to conduct the first academic study of shimauta music to preserve its unique traditions. Her work seeks to build awareness of the Amami people and amplify their cultural contributions to audiences in Japan, the U.S., and globally.
Additional 2022 grantees awarded by the NYC office include Wuerxiya, Craft, United States; Đỗ Tường Linh, Curation, Vietnam; Gardika Gigih Pradipta, Music, Indonesia; Le Hien Minh, Visual Art, Vietnam; Htaywai Naing, Art History, Myanmar; Nigam Bhandari, Film, Nepal; International Studio & Curatorial Program, Art History, United States/Philippines. For more information about the respective grantee projects, please visit ACC online.
