1916 Race St
19103 Philadelphia PA
The Jane and David Walentas Endowed Fellowship sustains Moore’s legacy as a hotbed of activity for forward-thinking contemporary artists.
Moore College of Art & Design is honored to announce the selection of artist Alicia Grullón as the 2020 recipient of the Jane and David Walentas Endowed Fellowship. The prestigious biannual fellowship underscores Moore’s ongoing commitment to social engagement by offering opportunities to thoughtful artists who bring their vision for the future of cultural production to the Moore community and the larger artistic community of Philadelphia. The fellowship, launched in 2018, was endowed by Jane Zimmerman Walentas, who graduated from Moore in 1966, and her husband, David.
Grullón, a native of New York City who still resides there, is a multidisciplinary artist who uses video, photography, social sculpture and performance to bring attention to issues like immigration, climate change, and racial and economic disparities. She argues for the inclusion of disenfranchised communities in political and social spheres. She is especially interested in community-centered agriculture and how art can help to re-establish dispossessed people’s relationship to land as a means of undoing settler-colonial structures. Her ongoing embodied research focuses on activating public spaces to prioritize healing and archiving oral history in order to disrupt historical patterns that undermine the health and civic participation of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) peoples. Grullón will use this fellowship to contribute to the creative and intellectual life of Philadelphia, and to Moore’s artistic and academic community.
“I feel very grateful to be receiving this fellowship. I am looking forward to the relationships I will build and the conversations we will have at this historic moment in our lives,” she said.
“We are excited, honored and extremely fortunate to embark upon a second iteration of the Jane and David Walentas Endowed Fellowship at Moore, and with a socially conscious and multidimensional artist such as Alicia Grullón,” said Cecelia Fitzgibbon, president of Moore College of Art & Design. “We look forward to the wide range of artistic expression Alicia will bring to her work with us, and to maximizing on Alicia’s impact within the Moore community and in Philadelphia as the fellowship program matures.”
Alicia Grullón’s works have been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including The 8th Floor, Bronx Museum of the Arts, BRIC House for Arts and Media, School of Visual Arts, El Museo del Barrio, Columbia University, Socrates Sculpture Park, Performa 11, Old Stone House and Art in Odd Places. Her art activist work led her to be one of the initial and current organizers for The People’s Cultural Plan (The PCP), a collection of artists and cultural workers addressing inadequacies with the city’s first proposed cultural plan. Grullón has served as a mentor for New York Foundation of the Arts’ Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program and as Artist Catalyst for The Laundromat Project from 2016–2018. She is an adjunct at The School of Visual Arts and the City University of New York. She is also currently artist-in-residence at the Hemispheric Institute. Her work can be viewed at her website.
Moore College of Art & Design educates students for careers in art and design. Founded in 1848, Moore is the nation’s first and only women’s visual arts college for undergraduates. The College’s career-focused environment and professionally active faculty form a dynamic community in the heart of Philadelphia’s cultural district, surrounded by world-class museums. The College offers eight bachelor of fine arts degrees for women and four coeducational graduate programs. In addition, Moore provides many valuable opportunities in the arts through The Galleries at Moore, Continuing Education Certificate programs for professional adults, the acclaimed Young Artists Workshop, The Art Shop and Sculpture Park. For more information about Moore, visit www.moore.edu.
