The Cleveland Arts Prize annually honors artists for artistic excellence and recognizes community leaders who help regional arts flourish. For over six decades, the organization has celebrated the contributions of more than 350 exceptional artists, cultural leaders and organizations.
The Cleveland Arts Prize will hold its 63rd Annual Awards Ceremony on Thursday, October 26, 2023 in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 11150 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio. Tickets are available here.
CoolCleveland conducted interviews with the five artists who won the 2023 Cleveland Arts Prize, which includes a cash award of $10,000 each.
Multimedia artist Atefeh Farajolahzadeh, originally from Iran, is a visual artist who utilizes photography, video and installation in her practice. She has shown her work at SPACES Gallery and participated in a residency for Akron Soul Train. Her work is driven by personal experiences as an immigrant facing the state of suspension between her current home and her country of origin and through abstraction and representation, fiction and non-fiction. Her work explores the concept of place, psychogeography, and liminality, with a particular focus on migration. View the video here.
Stephanie Ginese is an author, instructor, and stand-up comedian from South Lorain. Her work has been published in zines, journals, & anthologies throughout the country. She has been a contributor for multiple digital Latinx platforms. Stephanie’s debut collection of poetry entitled Unto Dogs, which was published in 2022, focuses on themes of Puerto Rican nationalism, history, reproductive violence and spirituality. She currently works as the Residency Coordinator at SPACES. She has been featured in Palabritas Journal at Harvard, The Pinch Journal at the University of Memphis, and Wax Nine. Stephanie was recently named the 2023 Writer-in-Residence at ATNSC, an artist-run urban gathering space that facilitates healing and creative leadership. View the video here.
Dr. Jacinda N. Walker is a designer, creative director and founder of DesignExplorr, a nonprofit organization located in Cleveland. DesignExplorr is a social impact organization whose mission addresses the diversity gap within the design profession by exposing design education to African-American and Latino youth and raising awareness for corporate organizations. They accomplish their mission through collaborating on educational youth programs, coordinating diversity-building initiatives, and connecting stakeholders to resources. Dr. Walker earned a B.F.A in graphic design from University of Akron and an M.F.A. in design research & development from The Ohio State University. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ringling College of Art + Design. View the video here.
Hailed as a “bassoon virtuoso” (Chicago Reader), Dana Jessen is in high demand as a soloist, chamber musician, improviser and New Music specialist. She is also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a Huygens Fellowship. Dana serves as an associate professor at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She has presented dozens of world premiere performances throughout North America and Europe and holds a Masters of Music in bassoon performance from New England Conservatory of Music and a Masters of Music in new dutch swing from the Artez Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in the Netherlands. View the video here.
Janet Macoska Since 1974, Janet Macoska has been capturing rock music’s greatest on film and now digitally. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Jazz Times, People, Vogue, American Photo, Classic Rock, 16, Sports Illustrated, New York Times and London Times and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Permanent collections that include her work are The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Smithsonian Museum of American History, The National Portrait Gallery in London, and The Grammy Museum. Her works have been used regularly by VH1, Bravo, A&E and the BBC in their “rockumentaries.” Artists who have used her images include David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Devo, Heart, AC/DC, and The Kinks. Her book Bruce Springsteen: Live in the Heartland was published in 2021 and features five decades of images of the timeless rock legend. View the video here.
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