2022 Kresge Artist Fellowship, Gilda Award winners announced
Kresge Arts in Detroit on Thursday announced the names of 31 metro Detroit artists who will share $550,000 in Kresge Artist Fellowships and Gilda Emerging Artist Awards.
Among this year’s winners are Cranbrook Academy of Art graduate and multidisciplinary artist Demario Dotson, Anishinaabe artist and former Oxford resident Hadassah GreenSky, playwright and Pontiac native Anetria Cole, and many more.
“These are 31 artists we can look forward to seeing, hearing, and experiencing in the months and years to come thanks to this program that supports and elevates artists individually,” said Kresge President and CEO Rip Rapson. “But it is of at least of equal importance that these artists remind us of our arts community’s collective contributions to the sense of our cultural roots and our future possibilities.”
In total, 15 Kresge Artist Fellowships in Film & Music and five Kresge Artist Fellowships in Live Arts — including one collaborative duo — were awarded, as well as seven Gilda Awards in Film & Music and three in Live Arts.
Kresge Arts in Detroit has awarded more than $7.36 million directly to artists in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties since 2008. Winners of Kresge Eminent Artist Awards, Kresge Artist Fellowships and Gilda Awards earn $50,000, $25,000 and $5,000, respectively.
“The big reveal of a year’s Kresge Artist Fellows and Gilda Award winners has become something of a metro Detroit rite of summer,” said Rapson, in a statement. “Many of us find confirmation about artists on our radar screen — and more importantly we’re introduced to many new artists making their marks on the city’s vibrant arts and cultural scenes.”
Dotson and GreenSky both received Kresge Artist Fellowships in Film & Music.
GreenSky — the first Anishinaabe to receive the Kresge Artist Fellowship — grew up in Oxford and is now based in Detroit. She describes herself as a cultural worker, multidisciplinary artist, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and fashion designer who uses modern and ancestral knowledge to create visibility and equity for Native People. GreenSky is also co-founder of Michigan’s first Native music festival, Vibes With The Tribes, and works as a teaching artist for the College for Creative Studies and the Detroit Historical Society.
“Winning this award is not only huge for me, it’s huge for my community, because there hasn’t been another native person that has won,” said GreenSky. “It’s really an honor; it’s indescribable because we get so silenced you know, we’re not typically seen, and for me this is giving us a moment for all of us to be seen, not just me.”