The Pamela Sneed Award for Black Queer|Art|Mentorship Artists and Organizers, recognizes the work of Black Fellows and Mentors with long-term engagement and dedication to the Mentorship community at Queer|Art and to uplifting critical histories of Black queer mentorship at large.

ABOUT

The first of its kind, The Pamela Sneed Award for Black Queer|Art|Mentorship Artists and Organizers, (formally known as The Black Queer|Art|Mentorship Award for Artists and Organizers) is a new annual award that acknowledges Black Queer|Art|Mentorship Mentors and Fellows who uplift critical histories of Black queer mentorship and exemplify steadfast commitment to values shared by the Queer|Art|Mentorship community. The award highlights Black queer artists within the Mentorship community that uphold guiding principles and practices like intergenerational exchange, collective care, creative resilience, preservation of Black queer legacies, and an engagement with grassroots organizing within their creative practice and beyond. The award is accompanied by a $10,000 cash prize, and the winner is honored at the Queer|Art Annual Party, in conjunction with the Queer|Art Prize ceremony.

The award emerged collectively from ongoing conversations among Queer|Art’s Black LGBTQ+ Artists Group in 2020. The award not only recognizes the contributions of Black queer artists within Queer|Art|Mentorship, but also celebrates foundational histories of mentorship and fellowship among Black queer artists whose labor too often remains underrecognized and undercompensated. With this award, the group seeks to correct this oversight and illuminate lineages of Black queer mentorship and world-building for today and tomorrow.

ADJUDICATION

The award is facilitated through a nomination process that welcomes nominations from past and current Black Mentors and Fellows of the Queer|Art|Mentorship program. The judges are selected by Queer|Art’s Black LGBTQ+ Artist Group.

Portfolios for nominated artists are assembled and distributed to the judging panel by Queer|Art staff. They are organized into two sections: the first highlights a history of the artist’s QAM community engagement, and the second section uplifts the artist’s other work––art-related or otherwise––taking place outside the Queer|Art|Mentorship community and that is in keeping with the values shared by Queer|Art and the intentions of this award.

For questions, email Queer|Art|Film & Awards Coordinator, Dani Brito at dbrito@queer-art.org.

2022 PAMELA SNEED AWARD JUDGES

Justin Allen is a writer and performer from Northern Virginia. With a background in tap dancing and creative writing, his work often combines a variety of art forms. He has been commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater and The Shed, and held residencies at ISSUE Project Room and the Center for Afrofuturist Studies. He has received support from Franklin Furnace, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation, and shared his work both stateside and abroad. Learn more here.

Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, writer, performer and visual artist, author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery, KONG and Other Works, Sweet Dreams and two chaplets, Gift by Belladonna and Black Panther. In 2021, She published a chapbook If The Capitol Rioters Had Been Black with F magazine and Motherbox Gallery. She has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Hyperallergic and on the cover of New York Magazine. She is online faculty in SAIC’s low res MFA teaching Human Rights and Writing Art and has also been a Visiting Artist at SAIC in the program for 5 consecutive years. In 2020, she was the Commencement Speaker for the low-res MFA program at SAIC. She also teaches new genres in Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She has performed at the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project, MCA, The High Line, New Museum, MOMA, Broad Museum and the Toronto Biennale. She delivered the closing keynote for Artist, Designers, Citizens Conference/a North American component of the Venice Biennale at SAIC. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s “The 100 Best African American Poems.” In 2018, she was nominated for two Push Cart Prizes in poetry. She is widely published in journals such as The Brooklyn Rail, Art Forum Magazine, The Paris Review, and Frieze Magazine. She recently published an article for Harpers Bazaar U.S. and has upcoming work in The New York Times. She is the author of a poetry and prose manuscript Funeral Diva published by City Lights in Oct 2020 featured in The New York Times and Publishers Weekly. Funeral Diva won the 2021 Lambda Lesbian Poetry Award. Additionally in 2021, She was a finalist for New York Theater Workshops Golden Harris Award and received a monetary award. In 2021, she was a panelist for The David Zwirner Gallery’s More Life exhibit, and has spoken at Bard Center for Humanities, The Ford Foundation, The Gordon Parks Foundation, Columbia University, The New School and NYU’s Center For Humanities. She currently has work on view at Leslie Lohman. She is a multi-year Queer|Art Mentor.

Stephen Winter is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and artist. He wrote, produced and directed his 1996 debut feature film Chocolate Babies, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won Honorable Mention and Audience awards at San Francisco Frameline, SXSW, Urbanworld and OutFest. Stephen’s second feature film is Jason and Shirley (2015) co-written and co-starred artist Jack Waters and playwright and journalist Sarah Schulman. Richard Brody in The New Yorker called it “one of the year’s finest” films. As producer, Stephen’s first film was Jonathan Caouette’s landmark “narci-cinema” feature documentary Tarnation. He has worked creatively with Lee Daniels (Precious, Paperboy, The Butler), John Cameron Mitchell (Shortbus), John Krokidas (Kill Your Darlings), David France (How To Survive A Plague) and Xan Cassavetes (Kiss of the Damned). In the podcast space, Stephen is directing the science fiction drama The Space Within for Topic Studios, starring and Executive Produced by Jessica Chastain with Bobby Cannavale, Michael Stahlberg, Sturgill Simpson and Jessica Wu. In 2018, with Tristan Cowen, Stephen co-wrote and directed the pioneering fiction podcast series Adventures in New America, an afro-futuristic political satire for the Night Vale Network, “The Best New Social Thriller is a Podcast,” New York Times, compared the show to Boots Riley and Jordan Peele. Learn more here.

2022 AWARD WINNER: ALEXIS DE VEAUX

In its second year, judges Justin Allen, Pamela Sneed, and Stephen Winter have bestowed the Pamela Sneed Award for Black Queer|Art|Mentorship Artists and Organizers to multihyphenate writer, educator, and activist, New Orleans-based author and 2021 Queer|Art Mentor Alexis De Veaux. They remark, “Alexis De Veaux is a pioneering force within the LGBTQIA community. Her expansive practice is wide-ranging: from poetry and journalism to children’s literature. Alexis has made invaluable contributions to the queer community across mediums. As a writer, educator, and public speaker, Alexis’s longstanding dedication to mentorship is clear across fields and generations. To be in the presence of her generous wisdom and infectious spirit is to be inspired.”

Alexis De Veaux, PhD., is the 2019 Distinguished Speaker for the Anne Frank Project Social Justice Festival, an honor bestowed on her by SUNY Buffalo State College. She is one of a stellar list of American writers highlighted by LIT CITY, a public art initiative of banners bearing their names and images in downtown Buffalo, New York; in recognition of the city's renowned literary legacy. Co-Founder (with poet Kathy Engel) of The Center for Poetic Healing, a project of Lyrical Democracies, and the Flamboyant Ladies Theatre Company (with Gwendolen Hardwick), Alexis De Veaux is a black queer feminist writer of fiction, nonfiction and poetry whose work in multiple genres is nationally and internationally known. Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, she is published in six languages-English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Serbo-Croatian and Portuguese. 

Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications; including, most recently, Mouths of Rain, An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (edited by Briona S. Jones, The New Press, 2021). She is the author of eight books, including multi-award winning works Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde (2004) and the novel Yabo (2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction (2015). As an artist and lecturer De Veaux has traveled extensively throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Japan and Europe; and is recognized for on-going contributions to a number of community-based organizations. She was a tenured member of the faculty at the University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York from 1992-2013; teaching as Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies in the Department of Transnational Studies. Ms. De Veaux is currently serving on the board of the Roadwork Center for Cultures in Disputed Territory and co-founded (with Amy Horowitz) The Enclave Habitat, a virtual community-by-network of socially engaged artists and activists. Further information is available on her website.

ABOUT QUEER|ART’S BLACK LGBTQ+ ARTIST GROUP

BlaQ, Queer|Art’s Black LGBTQ+ Artist Group was founded in 2020 in response to the ongoing crisis of state violence against Black lives. The group centers fellowship and skill-sharing among the Black LGBTQ+ artists in Queer|Art|Mentorship through resource mapping and organizing for Black liberation. In 2021, the group conceived The Flash Fund at Queer|Art. Named in honor of Lola Flash, a celebrated photographer, a Mentor in our community, and the first Black board member at Queer|Art, the fund provides $500 micro-grants to Black queer artists within the Queer|Art|Mentorship community for artists' projects.

ARCHIVE