DUMBO — Two Trees Management announced on Monday the recipients of Cultural Space Subsidy Program grants for affordable studio space in DUMBO. Founded to help NYC’s artists thrive and provide relief from the steep prices of New York City’s commercial real estate market, the Cultural Space Subsidy Program annually awards affordable studio space to a group of talented artists that demonstrate an intent to provide a social benefit to both the DUMBO area and the community at large.
The Two Trees Cultural Space Subsidy Program offers a significantly reduced rate of $12/RSF per year. The studios range from 500 to 2,500 square feet and are located in landmarked, industrial loft buildings on the Brooklyn waterfront.
“By granting below-market rate studio space to these talented artists, we’re able to truly support the people who make our communities better and ensure that DUMBO’s vibrant artistic culture continues to flourish,” said Kate Gavriel, Cultural Affairs Director at Two Trees. “Especially in our current market, affordable studio space is hard to find and scarcity has prompted many artists to relocate. Through the Cultural Space Subsidy Program, artists have the opportunity to join a community that uplifts their work, and in turn, they help keep NYC a cultural capital by helping foster its creative and cultural discourse.”
Two Trees is dedicated to maintaining a diverse and creative group of commercial tenants that underscores DUMBO’s identity as a neighborhood where innovation, entrepreneurship, and community engagement are celebrated. For more than 30 years, arts, culture and non-profit organizations and professionals have found a home in DUMBO thanks to greatly reduced or free rent in Two Trees buildings. As the neighborhood continues to grow in desirability, Two Trees remains committed to supporting these groups, maintaining approximately 100,000 square feet rented at reduced rates.
“Being part of the CSSP program has been a blessing,” said Rodney Ewing, 2023 Cultural Space Subsidy Program recipient. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to receive subsidized space that more than accommodates my artistic practice and where the logistics of workspace is not an issue. In the short time I’ve been in the program I’ve already been welcomed into a new community of artists. I look forward to continuing to be part of the CSSP program and working in DUMBO.”
The below 2023 recipients were found through an open call and selected based on their commitment to community engagement and social impact, along with their quality of work.
2023 Cultural Space Subsidy Program recipients:
Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.
Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. uses photography to explore representation through privacy and fiction. Occasionally the work turns from standard prints to examine photography as a sculptural, redactive, and site-specific process. He has completed residencies at Abrons Art Center in New York, St. Roch Community Church in New Orleans, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He is a 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Photography and received the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant in 2019. Brown received his BFA in Photography from New York University. He is currently based in Queens, New York. His upcoming solo exhibition will be on display at the Nicelle Beauchene Gallery from January 27 to February 26. He is working with Matte Editions currently on releasing a book for publication this Spring.
Rachelle Dang
Rachelle Dang is a sculptor and interdisciplinary artist whose work engages with the environmental legacies of colonialism. She was a 2022 artist fellow at the Museum of Arts and Design and participated in residencies at Yaddo, Shandaken: Storm King Art Center, and the Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program. Previous exhibitions include Socrates Sculpture Park, Casey Kaplan, Fergus McCaffrey, A.I.R. Gallery, mhPROJECTnyc, Motel, Someday, Haverford College Art Galleries, Hawaii Pacific University, and the Honolulu Museum of Art. Her solo exhibitions have been reviewed in the Brooklyn Rail and Hyperallergic. Dang lives and works in Brooklyn.
Rodney Ewing
Rodney Ewing is a visual artist, whose drawings, installations, and mixed media works focus on his need to intersect body and place, memory and fact, and to re- examine histories. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, Jack Shainman’s The School, The Drawing Center in NY, and most recently at Rena Bransten Gallery. Ewing is a grantee of the Pollock Krasner award (2022-2023) and his work has recently been included in the collection of Tufts University Tisch Library. Ewing will have two exhibitions on display this year in Chicago, Illinois. The first, Surviving the Long Wars: Residues and Rebellions, will be on display at The Newberry Library in Chicago from February 28 to May 27th. The second exhibition, Surviving the Long Wars: Unlikely Entanglements, will be on display from March 16 to July 9.
Raque Ford
Raque Ford infuses abstraction with narrative potential, producing layered works that explore how identity is crafted from the remnants of popular culture. Known for her distinctive way with materials, Ford troubles the line between painting and sculpture, using reflective acrylic and transparent Mylar, welded steel chains and laser-cut text. Her high-gloss surfaces are incised with spidery script that quotes from a range of sources: song lyrics, snippets of conversation, excerpts from fiction and diaristic jottings. Ford’s work is in the collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Ford will be involved in two exhibitions this year. The first, Looking Back / The 13th White Columns Annual, will be on display at White Columns in New York, NY from January 20 to March 4. The second, her solo exhibition, will be on display at Good Weather Gallery in Chicago, IL from Feb. 26 to May 6.
Priscilla Jeong
Priscilla Jeong is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work manifests in reconfiguration of systems of challenge and control, interiority of the mechanical and cultural ornamentation through techno-fictional narratives that allow permeability of light, imagination, and illumination. Jeong received an MFA from Columbia University. She is a recipient of AHL-T&W Foundation Contemporary Visual Art Awards’ Gold Award, Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant Nomination, the Andrew Fisher Fellowship, the Hayman Visual Arts Gift and the Choy Family Fellowship. Her work has been presented at Downs&Ross, Colnaghi, Ryan Lee, Interstate Projects, Fisher Parrish, Columbia University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Emily Nam
Emily Nam is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist and research consultant. Working with textile, sound and visual media; she draws large geometric ideograms and painted sculpture — as a tool to examine relationships between memory, language and the human experience. She is curator of Objects For Artists and AHDUWAH, a sound recording project, is broadcast with Soho Radio London. Emily’s work has been featured in Vogue, Pop Magazine, NTS Radio, Zoo Magazine and her curation, Objects for Artists, in the New York Times.
The 2023 Culture Space Subsidy Program application will open on April 15, 2023 and close on May 31, 2023. Those interested in applying can find more information here.