Updates from the 2023 Rubys Cohort!

As we approach the end of July, we're also nearing the conclusion of the 2023 Rubys grant cycle. You might be curious about what our 2023 grantees have been up to. Today, we're excited to share some updates on their projects and the progress they've made.

Nate Larson

Received a Rubys grant to support El Puente: On Juvenile Incarceration in Argentina, an empathetic documentary project using photography, oral history interviews, and direct collaboration to honor and empower incarcerated youth in Argentina.

Centros Cerrados: Juvenile Incarceration in Argentina

For my Rubys Artist Grant project, Centros Cerrados: Juvenile Incarceration in Argentina (working title), I traveled to La Plata, Argentina to work with incarcerated juveniles. I partnered with El Puente Arte y Cultura, an organization that facilitates access to the arts with underserved communities, and the artist residency program Residencia Corazón. Through these partnerships, I gained regular access to four prisons near La Plata in Buenos Aires province: Centro Cerrado Almafuerte, Centro de Recepción Eva Perón, Centro Cerrado Eva Perón, and Centro Cerrado Pellegrini.

Entering and spending time in these spaces has been a humbling experience that will stay with me for a long time. Each facility has its own director, staff, and institutional culture(s). My collaborators were invaluable, helping to facilitate language barriers, create connections with local communities, and coordinate transportation to the various facilities.

The camera is a focal point in my conversations with the youth. I work by observing, photographing, and sharing images on the camera screen for feedback and further conversation. The youth are also active participants, making photographs themselves with my primary camera, secondary camera, and phone. After each visit, I share images through their personal phones (initially permitted during the pandemic and now difficult to rescind) and DMs on Instagram. Some of the portraits I made were posted on their personal Instagrams, a special kind of validation when a young person shares your image in that way.

The photographs we created together pierce my heart like an arrow, both through the powerful imagery and the challenging realities of the social conditions within these prison spaces. I will continue to work with El Puente and Residencia Corazón to identify pathways for public policy impact. I am currently working on a book that can be shared with the youth and the public.

I am deeply grateful to my Argentinian collaborators, whose dedication and support have been instrumental in making this work possible: Juan Pablo Ferrar, Rodrigo Mirto, Claudia Lopez Lombardi, Mora Gutierrez, Luciano Guglielmino, Carlos Ignacio Bogino, Aime Portela Gallo, and Hanna Kratsman-Robles. I also extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation for their pivotal support of this project, as well as for their continued support of the vibrant artistic community in Baltimore.

- Nate Larson

Image Titles:

1. Ilan, Centro de Recepción Eva Peron, Abasto, Argentina, 2024
2. Ariel en la Invernadero, Centro de Recepción Eva Peron, Abasto, Argentina, 2024
3. Actividades Fotográficas, Centro Cerrado Eva Perón, Abasto, Argentina, 2024

Jalynn Harris

Received a Rubys grant to support Oh, Baltimore!, a collection of poems using the site of Druid Hill Park and the artist's embodied experiences as a Baltimore native as the central subjects, in order to create art that redresses the narrative of a city wrecked by negative representation in the media.

Oh, Baltimore!

As a 6th generation Marylander, my work is an arena to honor my home–its people, its persona; its intimate and everyday day; its intimations in a single moment. My manuscript explores Baltimore City as a complex body and my body as a complex city. Site specifically, Druid Hill Park is also a microcosm of our society at large– the pain of environmental collapse, the greed of late-stage capitalism, and the politics of a Black queer body’s access to space. The nature of my body and having PCOS-- my hair are symbols of the political. Hair in this manuscript is as much just what grows out of the head, as what has grown out of my chin, under my arms, in fields down my legs. Hair is a symbol of the Black womxn; hair is a political weapon; hair is the disruption of youth and the complication of gender. My poetry lets it out into a wild afro for the purpose of enacting autonomy, providing representation, and speaking back to violent hegemonic structures. Through the use of place and body, my poetry is both personal and political. It is as much private and a lens into the systemic. My poetry’s accessibility in language allows for a transparent view of the everyday to act as a lesson and mirror for every person.

- Jalynn Harris

Poem: Wart Remover

Wart Remover
It never occurred to me
this virus on the pout
of my thumb, multiplying as
sheep scat; a cluster of what ate. Swelling
like a slapped face, a head at
the site of a hammer. At night,
i dream of my black skin smooth
as american highways, a jar without
the glue of labels, a floor free
of cooking crumbs and red sauce as
splat as my heart. The surface of which
I’ve never touched but is touched
daily by surges of sniffling desire,
hardened liquids of have nots. It doesn’t work
this bottle, when i open its dime-sized
neck and take out the dropper, feeding it to my thumb
an opened beak. Week after week, i medicate,
but it always comes back even after the white coffin,
its smother of acid carrying a holy text
with common promises of removal.

Zara Kahan

Received a Rubys grant to support Come Into My Arms, a film which follows a Filipino-American archivist on a quest to uncover the origins of a mysterious film, leading her to confront her repressed emotions over her abusive mother's death while a dashing ghost from her homeland haunts her.

Come into My Arms

‘Come Into My Arms’ completed principal photography back in December of 2023, with a schedule spanning roughly three weeks that included locations across Station North, Fells Point, Mount Vernon, Towson, and more. We kicked it off shooting scenes for an archival film within the film: footage of a woman and her child adrift in the ocean that the protagonist Diwa comes across as a museum archivist. The shoots that followed ranged from tranquil night exteriors to bustling bar interiors, with some locations doubling as several settings within the world of the film, from museums to hospitals to diners. Our fantastic and talented cast and crew took the long days in stride, and by the end of our tight shoot, we had covered nearly all of the scenes in the script. However, we did run into a COVID-related setback, forcing us to reschedule some of our final days. But with most of the footage shot and assembled, the editing process began soon after wrap. In the meantime, we continued pre-production for the few pickup shoots we’d need to fully complete the film. In May of 2024, we shot for two additional days, coordinating and rehearsing with performers from the Peabody Institute to film a series of scenes centering a traditional Tagalog song. The post-production process continued alongside these shoots, as we recruited voice-over artists and progressed to finer cuts. At the same time, we scheduled and put preparations in place for an additional five days. Currently, we’ve locked down our final stretch of shoots to take place in late August, after which we’ll officially wrap on production. As we move further into post-production, we’ll be working on visual effects, scoring, and color grading to bring the film to a polished final product for upcoming festival submissions.

- Zara Kahan

Alumni News!

Tahir Hemphill

playtest: Prompt Battle part of the

A one-day event on 8/1/2024 7:30pm - 11pm at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts located at 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC 2056

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts invites you to playtest: Practicum featuring lightning talks by Black and Brown AI creatives who will showcase the incredible possibilities and possible pitfalls of these technologies. Following presentations, we’ll dive into engaging discussions, where you'll have the chance to ask questions, offer feedback, and critique the ideas presented.

playtest: Practicum is part of our journey to design the culminating public event in 2025 – playtest: Prompt Battle. In this live competition, participants will creatively use text-to-image software to compete against each other. Judges will crown the champion based on the most unexpected, unsettling, or beautiful images produced by AI models.

Building on the success of Rap Research Lab, both of these events aim to bridge the knowledge gap on machine bias and algorithmic equity within communities of color by establishing a site for a community data experience.

Let's shape the future of AI together. What do you envision for the future of AI? Join us on August 1 to share your thoughts and be part of this exciting conversation!

To learn more about the event please view the link below:
https://www.playtest.org