The Velocity Fund

Group Name: Black Quantum Futurism
Artist Collaborators: Rasheedah Phillips, Camae Ayewa, Mina Zarfsaz, D1L0 DeMille, MadamData
Title: Black Womxn Temporal Portal  
Grant Amount: $15,000
Proposal: Considering the unique, intersectional temporal experiences of Black women, femmes, non-binary folks, and girls and the ways in which we are being actively erased from the objective, linear future, Black Womxn Temporal Portal is a temporary temporal sanctuary with an interactive toolkit of Black womanist temporal rituals preparing us for Black quantum womanist futures. The Portal has been activated and will now appear at various community-based locations in North Philly.The Portal will receive upgrades enhancing the interactive, hyper-customized nature of the Portal for Black womxn and girls to truly shape their own space and time in the portal. Portal upgrades include a new short film revolving around its tech and tools. 

Group Name: APIARY MAGAZINE
Artist Collaborators: Steven Burns, Alexa Smith, Kareem Groomes, Kai Davis , Amanda Buck, Veronica Nocella
Title:  APIARY Magazine
Grant Amount: $15,000
Proposal: APIARY Magazine seeks to expand and refine its editorial, administrative, and community engagement processes to foster more meaningful, intimate, and intentional writing relationships and mentorship opportunities for Philadelphians. With the assistance of the Added Velocity, we hope to: (1) Build a series of community partner-aligned thematic creative writing workshops and editorial sessions in neighborhoods across Philadelphia, lead by local writers (2) Transform our traditional annual print release schedule into a biannual model. (3) Reorganize our current all-volunteer staff structure to be both sustainable and scalable. Added Velocity gives APIARY Magazine and its staff the opportunity to grow with purpose, focus, and care.

Group Name: Creative Resilience Collective
Artist Collaborators: Andrea Ngan, Michelle Delgado, Felicia Blow & Bennett Kuhn
Title: Creative Resilient Youth (CRY)
Grant Amount: $15,000
Proposal: We aim to focus on growing Creative Resilient Youth (CRY), a teen-led collaborative project bridging gaps in teen mental health care, combating stigma, and creating space for dialogue about intergenerational trauma through collective art-making. In its second year, CRY teen leaders aim to invite a new cohort of high school-age collaborators to produce an art exhibit, collective zine, public events, and establish a peer-to-peer public art workshop and research initiative aimed at supporting pre-teens in middle school.

Group Name: The Reentry Think Tank

Artist Collaborators: Mark Strandquist, Courtney Bowles, The Reentry Think Tank (RTT) Fellows
Title: Reentry Bill of Rights
Grant Amount: $15,000
Proposal:  Our initial project culminated with the Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP) accepting the Reentry Think Tank’s “Reentry Bill of Rights” into their permanent collection as part of a larger event where the Mayor, Defenders, and DA’s office also accepted a copy. Building on this momentum, we will partner with the FLP to exhibit the Reentry Bill of Rights in different library branches across the city. At each exhibition stop, Reentry Think Tank Fellows will host public events, conversations, and workshops to engage community members to add to, edit, and “ratify” the Reentry Bill of Rights. The project will culminate with a final event at the FLP’s Central Branch, where Reentry Think Tank Fellows will present the ratified version to stakeholders.

Group Name: GrizzlyGrizzly
Artist Collaborators:  Amy Hicks, Talia Greene, Angela McQuillan, Maggie Mills, Ephraim Russell, and Phillip Scarpone.(GrizzyGrizzly) 
Project Title: Speak Speak, Walk Walk… Listen
Grant Amount: $15,000
Proposal:  Grizzly Grizzly proposes a series of projects that broaden our ongoing programming through lectures, walking tours, neighborhood events, and supplemental print and web publications. Added Velocity gives GG the opportunity to investigate its role in its own neighborhood; an economically, culturally, and ethnically complex district, as well as to reach beyond its built-in audience to engage with new communities. GG will collaborate with Asian Arts Initiative, Space 1026, and Venture Café to deepen its relationships in North Chinatown, and establish new connections in North Broad and University City. Through these concurrent programs, we will strengthen our programming by developing projects which are not tied to the four walls of our gallery.

For its inaugural year, Added Velocity awarded five ambitious projects led by Philadelphia-based artists $15,000 (each) to build on the successes of their initial Velocity Fund initiatives.  From 2019 – 2020, Added Velocity was administered by Temple Contemporary at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University with generous support from the William Penn Foundation.