Demystifying Artist Grants & Residencies
with Yue Hua, Kathryn Ramey, and Sara Jordenö
Thursday, July 9, from 3:00–5:00 PM EST (Zoom)
Applying for grants and residencies can feel overwhelming. How do you find the right opportunities? What makes a strong application? How do artists build sustainable funding for their creative practice?
Join artists and filmmakers Yue Hua, Kathryn Ramey, and Sara Jordenö for an open conversation about navigating grants, residencies, fellowships, and project funding. Rather than offering a single "correct" way to apply, this workshop focuses on sharing practical strategies, lessons learned, and honest experiences from working artists.
Participants are encouraged to ask questions and contribute their own experiences throughout the discussion.
This workshop is for:
Artists, filmmakers, and interdisciplinary creatives
Those preparing to apply for grants or artist residencies
Artists looking to strengthen or refine their application materials
Anyone interested in building a sustainable creative practice
Topics include:
Finding grants, residencies, and funding opportunities
Building a sustainable application workflow
Writing compelling project narratives
Positioning your artistic practice for different opportunities
Budgeting and financial planning
Growing from small grants to larger funding opportunities
Partnerships, fiscal sponsorship, and long-term career development
Rejection, resubmission strategies, and audience Q&A
The workshop will conclude with an open discussion, followed by an optional networking session where participants can connect and form writing feedback groups.
Speakers:
Yue Hua (Moderator)
Yue Hua (华越) is a filmmaker, early-career multimedia artist, and educator whose work combines analog film, expanded cinema, performance, and digital media to explore cross-cultural identity, language, memory, and women's experiences. Her work has been presented internationally at film festivals, galleries, and artist-run spaces.
Hua has built her practice through grants, fellowships, and residencies, including support from the UFVA Carole Fielding Grant, Transform Boston Grant, Opportunity Fund from the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, Assets for Artists, and Interbay Cinema Society. Her residency experience includes the Boston Center for the Arts ACTivate Residency, I-Park Residency, Mother's Milk Residency, and PATCHWORK: Film x Poetry Fellowship.
Kathryn Ramey
Kathryn Ramey is an award-winning filmmaker, anthropologist, educator, and author whose work bridges experimental film, ethnographic research, and alternative analogue processes. A recipient of major fellowships and grants from organizations including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Creative Capital, the Social Science Research Council, LEF Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council on the Arts, Kathryn brings extensive experience navigating funding opportunities for artists and filmmakers.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues and festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Kathryn has also participated in numerous artist residencies, including Yaddo and Mass MOCA studios. She is the author of Experimental Filmmaking: BREAK THE MACHINE and has spent decades supporting artists through teaching, workshops, mentorship, and community-based creative practice.
Sara Jordenö
Sara Jordenö is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and curator whose work spans nonfiction cinema, installation, and site-specific public art. Their feature documentary KIKI, co-written with Twiggy Pucci Garçon, premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival and in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival, where it received the Teddy Award for Best Documentary and Essay Film. The film was nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award, received the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights, was released theatrically in the United States, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and screened at hundreds of film festivals internationally.
Over the past two decades, Jordenö has built an international practice supported by grants, residencies, public commissions, and co-productions in Europe and the United States. Their work has received support from the LEF Foundation, the Swedish Artist Grants Committee, Art Matters Foundation, NYSCA, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, IASPIS, and other funders. They have served as a grant reader for the LEF Foundation and participated in artist residencies such as LMCC Workspace, Abrons Art Center, Banff Centre, IASPIS, NIFCA, Byrdcliffe Woodstock Guild, and Mount Auburn Cemetery. Jordenö is currently in the final financing stages of their second feature, The Swimmer, and is developing their third feature, Exposome.
Registration:
AgX Members: Free (RSVP required)
Non-Members: Non-members are welcome to attend as space allows. To request to join the waitlist, please email Yue Hua at yuehuaart@gmail.com. If a space becomes available, you will receive an email inviting you to make a suggested donation to AgX to confirm your registration.
Suggested donation: $35
We also offer a sliding-scale donation for those with limited financial resources:
$25 – General sliding scale
$10 – Students or those experiencing financial hardship
No one will be turned away for lack of funds. If the suggested donation is a barrier to attending, please let us know when you request to join the waitlist.
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