Edmonton recognizes artists with diversity and trust fund awards (with video)

Edmonton recognizes artists with diversity and trust fund awards (with video)

A Somali performance poet, a Brazilian composer and a Ukrainian visual artist are among the winners of the 2013 Cultural Diversity in the Arts awards supporting artists from abroad who now make their home in Edmonton.
The awards of $7,500, administered by the Edmonton Arts Council, go to musicians, filmmakers, writers, actors and other artists who come to Edmonton and show a strong commitment to continuing their craft here.
Poet Ahmed Ali, a.k.a. “Ahmed Knowmadic,” is one of nine artists who snagged a prize this year. He is a Canadian poetry slam champ and co-founder of the Breath In Poetry collective.
Other winners include Tanzanian children’s book author Tololwa M. Mollel, Chilean composer Raimundo Gonzalez, Zimbabwean musician and art entrepreneur Chakanaka Zinyemba, Colombian media artist and filmmaker Lukas Zapata, Iraqi visual artist and lecturer Mahdi Neahmah, Brazilian composer André Mestre, visual artist Ljubomir Ilic, who is from the former Yugoslavia, and Ukrainian visual artist and printmaker Oksana Movchan. Movchan was the sole female winner.
The arts council also announced the six winners of its 2013 Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund, which also provides $7,500 to artists in an effort to encourage them to stay in this community. The winners are multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Lyle Bell, who plays in Shout Out Out Out Out, The Wet Secrets and Whitey Houston; musician and instructor Mark Davis, a founding member of roots-rock experimentalists Old Reliable and the musical force behind gothic-dance-rock duo Concealer; visual artist Brenda Malkinson; writer Mary Christa O’Keefe; actress and playwright Isabelle Rousseau and artist Jill Stanton.