All full-time faculty members in the TCVPA, including professors of practice, lecturers, and tenure-track/tenured faculty members, are invited to apply. In all cases, applications must articulate how the project for which funding is requested aligns with the faculty member's position at TTU. 

August – October: Award guidelines and timeline updated as needed.

November 1: Application portal opens via InfoReady.

February 1: Application portal closes, and all proposals are due by end of business. 

February 1 – March 1: Proposals are reviewed by RCAA Review Committee (made up of rotating group of faculty members, Associate Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, & Outreach, and Director of Grants & Innovation). 

March 15: Applicants are notified of committee decision via email, award period begins. All recipients and non-recipients receive reviewing rubric and feedback. 

Subsequent March 15: RCAA Red award period ends for previous year's awardees; RCAA-Black award period ends for awardees from two years prior.

Subsequent late Spring semester – RCAA—Research Colloquium

Subsequent September 1 – Copy of external funding application due to Assoc. Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, & Outreach from all RCAA Black recipients (prompt sent August 15.) 

*Please note that consultation with Associate Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, & Outreach and Director of Grants & Innovation is available throughout the year.  

The application portal opens each Fall term on November 1 and closes on February 1. Applicants will complete an application online via InfoReady.

The following components will be required for an application to be complete: 

• A concise and clear project abstract (250-500 words)
• Project Narrative (≤2,500 words): 

Please consider the following themes with prompts to guide your narrative:

• Artistry, Innovation, Collaboration:
  • How does the proposed project expand your own scholarship area and promote understanding of the arts or artists?
  • How is the proposed project innovative?
  • How does the proposed project contribute to collaborations within or beyond your immediate area? 
• Scope & Timeline:
  • Articulate how the project will be accomplished within the award period (Red 1 year, Black 2 years); including an annotated timeline. 
  • How might the scope of this project expand beyond the award period?
  • RCAA Black only: How will the internal funding, a first phase of the project, lead to a next phase towards application for an external funding opportunity? 
• Budget:
  • How will the proposed budget adequately and realistically meet the needs of the project?
• Impact:
  • How will the investment of funding acquired positively impact the awardee, their students, colleagues, and their profession?
  • How might the project connect to, set the stage for, or contribute to an aspect of community outreach?  
  • Who will be impacted by the project, whether directly or indirectly? 
  • RCAA Black only: How will the project form a substantial opportunity to position the arts within the context of emerging and innovative research? 
• Itemized Budget: Applicants must submit an itemized budget detailing all elements proposed. The budget must include all needs individually listed as line items with a total request listed.  
• Supporting Materials:
  • Faculty Bio and Photo: Bio must be no more than 300 words. 
  • Optional: Links to websites, media platforms, social media illustrating related work. 

The RCAA Red consists of awards up to $5,000. The award period is one year, meaning faculty have one year from the time the award is granted to make use of the funds. Guidelines and resources pertaining to the award will be sent to all recipients as part of the offer letter and will include:

• Instructions on how to access and track the funds. 
• Invitation and guidance for participation in the Annual Colloquium and reception in which recipients will provide a poster presentation on their research.
• At the end of the award period, recipients will receive a prompt to complete a brief report to the Associate Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, and Outreach summarizing the activities undertaken, the goals to which they aspired, and the degree of success they enjoyed in reaching those goals within the award period. This will include a portal for submission of media showcasing an example of final product for password protected website.
• Consent form to post examples of media from project, including documentation of creation period and agreed upon examples from the final product on TTU Research website. 

Evaluation Rubric

Artistry, Innovation, Collaboration: (weight = 70) 

• Does the proposed project hold artistic and/or scholarly merit?
• Does the proposed work expand our understanding of the arts or of artists?
• Does the proposed project demonstrate innovation?
• Does the proposed project develop the faculty member's professional, scholarly, intellectual, and/or artistic skills?
• Does the project present new or strengthen preexisting collaborations within/beyond the faculty member's immediate area?

Logistics: (weight = 10)

• Evaluation of scope of work and alignment with requested resources, appropriateness of the project's use of resources.
• Does the project's budget adequately and realistically meet the needs of the work?
• Does the project represent a sound investment of college funding?
• Is the project's budget proportional to the results/end product expected at the award's conclusion?

Impact: (weight = 20)

• Evaluation of the potential impacts of the project beyond the conclusion of the award period.
• How will the knowledge, benefits, and/or purchases acquired during the project positively impact the awardee, their students, peers, and their profession?
• Will the project result in a product, such as a performance, a publication, or other form of deliverable?
• What potential exists for the project to catalyze further research and/or creative activities?
• Who will the project impact, how many people, which organization(s), will it impact the community, a geographic area? 

The RCAA Black consists of awards above $5,000 and the award stipulates recipients submit at least one application to an appropriate external funding source within six months after the conclusion of the award period, which is two years in length. Guidelines and resources pertaining to the award and the external application requirement will be sent to all recipients as part of the offer letter and will include:

• Access to a designated account and instructions on how to spend and track award funding.
• Invitation and guidance for participation in the Annual Colloquium and reception in which recipients will provide a short presentation on their research.
• At the end of the award period, recipients will receive a prompt to complete a brief report to the Associate Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, & Outreach summarizing the activities undertaken, the goals to which they aspired, and the degree of success they enjoyed in reaching those goals within the award period. This will include a portal for submission of media showcasing an example of final product for password protected website.
• At this time or before recipients will also receive resources and consultation opportunities in support of external grant application.
• Consent form to post examples of media from project, including documentation of creation period and agreed upon examples from the final product on TTU Research website.

Evaluation Rubric

Artistry, Innovation, Collaboration: (weight = 60)

• Does the proposed project hold artistic and/or scholarly merit?
• Does the proposed work expand our understanding of the arts or of artists?
• Is the proposed project innovative?
• Does the proposed project develop the faculty member's professional scholarly, intellectual, or artistic skills?
• Does the project present new or strengthen preexisting collaborations within/beyond the faculty member's immediate sphere?
• Is the project interdisciplinary, either within or beyond the college?
• Does the project contain an appropriately proportional deliverable?

Logistics: (weight = 10)

• Evaluation of scope of work and alignment with requested resources, appropriateness of the project's use of resources.
• Does the project's budget adequately meet the needs as outlined in the scope of work?
• Does the project represent a sound investment of college funding?
• Is the project's budget proportional to the results/end product expected at the award's conclusion?
• For equipment or other purchases, does the project draw on existing resources or other sources for those needs?

Impact: (weight = 30)

• Evaluation of the potential impacts of the project beyond the conclusion of the award period. How will the knowledge, benefits, and/or purchases acquired during the project positively impact the awardee, their students/peers, and their profession?
• Will the project result in a product, such as a performance, a publication, or other form of deliverable?
• What potential exists for the project to catalyze further research and/or creative activities?
• Does the proposed project's impact extend to a regional, national, or international level?
• Who will the project impact, how many people, which organization(s), will it impact the community, a geographic area?
• What is the project's potential to garner larger-scale funding—preferably from federal or other non-local sources in the future?

• Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator refer to the project lead and other key personnel, respectively. The Principal Investigator is responsible for directing and administering the project or activity, while Co-Investigators play significant roles in its design, execution, and/or evaluation. Co-Investigators may be from other units or external to Texas Tech.
• Each project's proposed scope of work should include a clear benchmark event (e.g., a culminating creative event such as a performance; an article, publication, or another appropriate product/benchmark by the conclusion of the award period.
• Faculty may serve as principle investigator on a maximum of one application and as co-investigator on no more than two further applications per annual application cycle. 
• Please stay tuned for additional resources that will be announced such as:
• Resources for International Projects
• Guidance for Reciprocal partnerships
• Database of external grants 
• Opportunities to share your experience or receive consultation. 
• List of public institutions around the world. 

Each cycle, the Associate Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, & Outreach will appoint a committee consisting of faculty representatives and the Director of Grants & Innovation to review applications using criteria articulated in a standardized and published rubric. Reviewing rubrics will be provided to submitting faculty, with additional feedback provided to those applications declined for funding. The reviewing committee either accepts or rejects individual applications and will not attempt to improve applications by editing or exercising a line-item veto, e.g. However, constructive feedback may be provided upon request. The reviewing committee will notify applicants by March 15 or as otherwise specified should additional time for a thorough review be necessary. Committee reviews will protect the identities of both the proposing and reviewing individuals from each other and will result in award recommendations to TCVPA leadership.

The relevant School-based business office will administer all funding. Faculty receiving RCAA—Red awards will have one calendar year from the date of disbursement to expend their award, while RCAA—Black awardees will have two calendar years from the date of disbursement. For both awards, disbursement will occur on or around March 15. Unexpended monies at the end of the award period will be returned to the funding pool for future awards. In extenuating and rare circumstances, faculty may appeal to the Associate Dean for Faculty, Research, Creativity, & Outreach to request an extension of their award period. 

With these Research and Creative Activity Awards, the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts affirms its commitment to supporting our faculty in the excellent work they undertake each day as artists, teachers, and researchers. Beyond welcoming faculty applications to this revitalized internal funding framework, we also actively solicit feedback and suggestions from the faculty for improving its structure. These awards are part of an evolving process to develop award mechanisms and opportunities that meet the multiplicity of faculty needs across the college.

RCAA—Red Awardees (up to $5000) 

Project Name: Evolution of Gaia
Project PI: Peter Fischer
Project Abstract: Evolution of Gaia will integrate original music, choreography, and film in the development and production of a new, evening-length work centered on themes of womanhood and motherhood as they relate to the Earth's endless cycle of birth and death, destruction and regeneration. The project will break new ground, tightly interweaving the artistic evolution of the collaboration between music and dance, with technology and film, to create a robust immersive multimedia experience. As a way of supporting underserved areas of our community, we will invite local students to be active participants in our interdisciplinary creative process through workshops and at planned events designed specifically for this outreach. 

Project Name: A Trillion Sunsets exhibition
Project PI: Aaron Hegert
Project Abstract: My work was selected to be featured in the exhibition A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload by world renowned curator David Campany. The exhibition will be installed at the International Center of Photography in New York City, where Mr. Campany is head curator.My series Shallow Learning will be installed in the museum as both a large scale installation (wallpapers) as well as a selection of framed prints. This exhibition is a 100 year survey of the photographic medium, and my work is being used to represent the moment that the photograph and archive ceased to be judged and categorized by humans as individual decision makers and moved into the realm of the algorithm and artificial intelligence. The exhibition is being widely publicized and includes work by established living artists such as myself, as well as canonical works by Hannah Hoch, Robert Frank, Carrie Mae Weems, and Andy Warhol, to name a few. This application is to cover travel to New York City to attend the exhibition A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload at the International Center of Photography in New York City. I will meet with curators and other artists, and participate in museum programming. 

Project Name: Hours, a mutlidisciplinary music/visual work, premiere and recording
Project PI: Alice-Anne Light
Project Abstract: Hours is a seventeen-movement melodrama for mezzo-soprano and piano commissioned from composer Cecil Price Walden by Alice Anne Light in 2018. Its premiere will be on April 8, 2022, in Hemmle Recital Hall at Texas Tech University. This work brings together poetry written between 1540 and 2010 and liturgical and biblical texts in German, Latin, Spanish, and English. Through this wide range of texts and languages, the work endeavors to explore the "dark night of the soul" through the established format of the 12th-century Book of the Hours. The medieval Book of the Hours combined biblical texts, psalms, and poetry into a devotional or prayer book. These prayer books would also frequently include "illuminated" texts or elaborate illustrations for each of the works included. In addition, Hours is in the traditional triptych form of a three-part work, each separated by a solo piano interlude. We hope to commission one canvas for each element of the triptych, to create a work of art that would echo the medieval altarpieces prevalent during the same time as the Book of the Hours. In this way, we would be crossing artistic disciplines. In this performance, we explore the universality of the human experience and draw our attention to what makes us the same rather than what makes us different.

Project Name:Museums and Acts of Place Keeping
Project PI: Rina Little
Project Abstract:  The goals of this proposed research are to introduce how art is used to enable the political through the affective, challenging ways of knowing, rendering places and histories tangible, and providing spaces where cultures can meet and exchange multiple and contest stories. The research will describe programs that enable place keeping, how they are organized, who is involved, what ideas shape them, and how they construct a sense of place through art. A sense of place refers to a space of encounter that holds inside itself useful anti-colonial practices, narratives, and resistance. It is a practice of worlding, which is the ability to engender responsibility for futures co-created through making, storytelling, writing, and researching. The museums are spaces that support practice that gathers together communities working across disciplines who are committed to imagining lives and futures differently by using art. Their programs are a means to re-examine the past and propose futures that actively addresses citizenship and belonging using form and content. They invent a sense of place by examining alternative forms of living and narrating through undoing and rearrangement, including that of materials. 

Project Name:Reciprocal Studios: Sounding History Podcast, Series II: “The Search for Jazz AI”
Project PI: Christopher J. Smith
Project Abstract: This application seeks support for a large-scale, multi-institution collaboration centered on the creation and dissemination of high-quality podcasting content appealing to a wide range of listeners, from academic experts to members of the general public. Specifically, we seek support for the production of Series II of Sounding History—a podcast developed in collaboration with Tom Irvine of the University of Southampton (United Kingdom). Series II—entitled “The Search for Jazz AI”—will comprise six episodes of production-quality content exploring a wide range of topics at the intersection of jazz and computing, including machine learning, the role of improvisatory performance in jazz, STEM and arts research, and other related ideas. Furthermore, the series will include a wide range of research opportunities and professional experiences for undergraduate students, which the team has developed in tandem with the Center for Transformative Undergraduate Experiences (TrUE) and the STEM Center for Outreach, Research, and Education (STEM-CORE), both of Texas Tech University.
 

RCAA—Black Awardees ($5000 and up)

Project Name: Music for Viola by Adolphus Hailstork
Project PI: Philippe Chao
Project Abstract: This CD recording project will shine new light on several works for the viola by the renowned African American composer, Adolphus Hailstork. The album will premiere a new work for solo viola which Dr. Hailstork will compose, a work that describes a narrative of darkness leading to light, terror to defiance—inspired by my recent and moving visit to the Equal Justice Initiative's (EJI) National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. This work, along with Sanctum Rhapsody for Viola and Piano and the premiere recordings of Four Lyric Pieces and Divertimento for Violin and Viola (composed for violinist Eva Cappelletti- Chao and violist Philippe Chao) will be included as well. The planned works will be featured in live performances before the studio recording sessions commence. I will secure the services of a chamber orchestra to round out the project with performances and a recording of Two Romances for Viola and Orchestra for a total of approximately 55 minutes of music.

Project Name: Pandemic-era Pregnancy and Motherhood Through Interdiscplinary Art
Project PI: Ali Duffy (with Sarah Johnson, Rachel Hirshorn-0Johnston, and Andrew Ina)
Project Abstract: We will expand an emerging collaboration to create and produce an evening-length interdisciplinary work of performance arts focusing on topics related to experiences of pregnancy and motherhood during the COVID-19 pandemic. This timely and important topic is distinctly under- or malrepresented in performance and scholarship, and we aim to create a space with our research for engaging our community, students, and disciplines with original work to address this gap and bring to light these momentous human experiences. We will further expand upon a pilot study, conducted in 2021, which included a qualitative research component and a short film interweaving original dance, theatre, and music. The expansion we propose will require additional data collection and a larger cast of performers so that we may widen the scope of our inquiry to include participants across the U.S. and so that we may add additional film and live production elements. To increase the impact of our work, we propose to invite participation from graduate and undergraduate students and colleagues across the College to assist in devising and performing the work. We will also partner with key nonprofit organizations in the community who will support us in building durable connections between the university and the surrounding South Plains region. Lastly, we will include a scholarly component in this work through interview participant data analysis and audience discussion and feedback, which we will then catalyze into at least one written piece for presentation and publication. 
 

RCAA—Red Awardees (up to $5000) 

Project Name: Performance in Outdoor Venues: The TTU Public Art Project 
Project PI: Annie Chalex-Boyle 
Project Abstract: Students of TTU music composition faculty Peter Fischer, Jennifer Jolley, and Hideki Isoda will compose new pieces for Durations Trio (Annie Chalex Boyle, Kevin Wass, and Susan Wass), with each being inspired by an artwork in the TTU Public Art Program. Durations Trio will perform each composition on-site at the artwork that inspired it. This project presents a significant opportunity to draw attention to our composition program, the Public Art collection, and our faculty performers. We have reached out to Director of Public Art Emily Wilkinson and she is supportive of our project moving forward. 
     This project was proposed to the Texas Tech University Scholarship Catalyst Program for FY 2021. We were awarded $3500 of a requested $5000. Since our initial SCP proposal, we have discovered additional equipment needs for our outdoor performances and are submitting this request to make up the $1500 gap in our initial funding as well as allow further necessary equipment purchases. 
 
Project Name: Saxophone Symbols 
Project PI: David Dees 
Project Abstract: The TTU Saxophone Studio is fortunate to have had two recent Gold Medalists in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. The Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition is the largest and most prestigious chamber music competition in the world. Mirasol was the Gold Medal recipient in 2015 and Aruna was the Gold Medal and Grand Prize recipient in 2019. This CD (tentatively titled Saxophone Symbols) will showcase Dees, Aruna and Mirasol in performances of landmark works for saxophone soloist and saxophone quartet: William Albright's Sonata for Saxophone and Piano (22:00), J.S. Bach's Chaconne from the Violin Partita in D Minor (arranged for saxophone quartet) (12:00) and William Albright's Fantasy Etudes for Saxophone Quartet (27:00).

Project Name: Examination of the Tension between Land and Water, Human and Nature, and the Photographs that Lie in the Middle 
Project PI: Robin Germany 
Project Abstract: My intention with this grant is to expand my current project, photographing the Texas Gulf coast, to the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, to observe and reflect on the current state of the land and water while seeking an answer to the question “what is the relationship between humans and nature.” I will look at two particular sites, one in Louisiana and one in Mississippi, where artists and environmentalists have found ways to co-exist with the gulf environment and engage with nature in a reciprocal manner. Human incursions, from salt mining to corporate fishing to petroleum refining, have transformed what was once a wild and lush marsh into a vacation destination for presidents and celebrities and later, a quasi-industrial zone. In the early 20th century, developers advertised in cities on the east coast and the Midwest to promote an image of the gulf coast as a resort area, but they scoured the coastline of many of the attributes that made it desirable in order to provide more housing and to create more coastline for sale. The redesigning of the coast, for industry, for greater resort potential, and for the convenience of larger cities has provoked great changes to the land and the water pathways that have altered the habitats there for humans, birds, and aquatic life. I plan to make photographs that investigate these changes, and that ask questions about the relationship between the human population and the natural environment. I will examine local archives to look at photographs and newspaper accounts from different eras of the cities and regions that I visit, so I can compare the representations of the present with the past. Perhaps I can begin to identify the beginning of the cycle that has led us to manipulate the land to suit our own immediate needs and disregard what is needed for the land to thrive. To accomplish this work, I am requesting support in purchasing a mirrorless Nikon Z7II camera and a Canon Prograf Pro printer. These tools provide the greatest of agility for a photographer to make images in a wide range of conditions and produce photographs of high quality and definition. 
 
Project Name: Invocation—French Melodies with text by Victor Hugo set to music by Charles Marie Widor 
Project PI: Rebecca Hays 
Project Abstract: Dr. Hays will continue her collaboration with pianist, Dr. Jeffrey Peterson (Baylor University) in this dynamic new album of music by French composer, Charles Marie Widor. It is anticipated that the final cost of the project will be $7000, and will be recorded in June of 2021 in Lubbock, Texas. The album has a tentative release date of December, 2021, pending funding. 
 
Project Name: The Language of Afro-Cuban Drum Set 
Project PI: Michael Mixtacki 
Project Abstract: There is significant need for an Afro-Cuban method book with accompanying digital audio in the drum set education community that highlights concepts for building facility and independence within different Afro-Cuban genres. My current work on a method book entitled The Language of Afro-Cuban Drum Set seeks to fill this space by providing readers with a methodical approach to learning fluidity within several commonly used Afro-Cuban drum set patterns. The book will be accompanied by digital audio materials essential for thorough understanding by the reader.

Project Name: Stockhausen In Freundshaft Documentary 
Project PI: Kim Walker 
Project Abstract: In 1982 I was invited to spend 3 days with Karlheinz Stockhausen and at his family home in Germany, during which time we worked together while he approved and created the bassoon version of his score In Freundshaft. I performed the premiere in London at the Wigmore Hall May 12, 1982 after which time he invited me on several occasions to work with him. Since the death of Karlheinz many players have written to me asking for more information about the work, the creative process used and especially the choreography he stipulated as well as the costume. During my stay, I created several new multiphonic fingerings and worked with him to ensure the then cutting-edge techniques were detailed in the score for other players once he chose his preferred sounds. We spent two more days while he choreographed the movements and designed a costume. I have the only score with his personal notes, and letters that would be of interest to other performers of the work on all instruments, especially the bassoon. To share his vision, I should record the work in costume using the choreography as he originally envisioned this work. I shall include an analysis just as he took me through the work from his point of view to leave a documentary in his honor for this 15-minute work. There are versions for many other instruments including the clarinet version from which this was derived. I am asking for $5000 to commission a new costume, record and publish a video documentary of this major work.

Project Name: The Kingdom of This World, Reimagined 
Project PI: Lesley Wolff 
Project Abstract: This proposal centers on the development of a comprehensive website dedicated to the traveling exhibition, The Kingdom of This World, Reimagined, curated by Dr. Lesley A. Wolff. The exhibition debuted at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami, Florida, in December 2019, during Art Basel Miami Beach and Art Week Miami, and will run from September 2021 to January 2022 at the Pensacola Museum of Art (PMA) with future venues currently under consideration. The exhibition showcases dynamic new works by eleven internationally renowned contemporary artists, each with ties to the Caribbean. These artists respond across various media to Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier's famous twentieth-century novel, The Kingdom of This World (1949), which fictionalizes the volatile period of the Haitian Revolution (c. 1791-1804). Using Carpentier's literary framework of lo real maravilloso [lit. the marvelous real; also known as Magical Realism], these artists reflect on the contemporary ripples and resonances of nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionary heritage, asking how 
struggles for Black sovereignty across the African Diaspora have given shape to the multifaceted identities of Black and Latinx communities today. At a moment when the U.S., and TTU specifically, are critically reflecting on racial justice, this exhibition considers how and to what extent images have been historically complicit in systemic racism and how artists today can divest from Eurocentric conventions by visually nurturing counter-histories. 

RCAA—Black Awardees ($5000 and up)

Project Name: Evolution of Gaia 
Project PI: Peter Fischer 
Project Abstract: Evolution of Gaia will integrate original music, choreography, and film in the development and production of a new, evening-length work centered on themes of womanhood and motherhood as they relate to the Earth's endless cycle of birth and death, destruction and regeneration. The project will break new ground, tightly interweaving the artistic evolution of the collaboration between music and dance, with technology and film, to create a robust immersive multimedia experience. As a way of supporting underserved areas of our community, we will invite local students to be active participants in our interdisciplinary 
creative process through workshops and at planned events designed specifically for this outreach.

Project Name: The use of animation making for the support and assistance of youth involved in the juvenile justice system 
Project PI: Jorgelina Orfila 
Project Abstract: The Animation-Making Workshops (AMW) at TTU (coordinated by Drs. Jorgelina Orfila and Francisco Ortega) in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Trejos-Castillo, Associate Chair, C.R. Hutcheson Professor at the Human Development and Family Sciences, TTU, will partner up with the Lubbock County Domestic Relations Office (Texas Dispute Resolution System) to develop a pilot program aimed at better understanding and addressing the experiences undergone by local youth (Lubbock, Texas) in the care of the Supervised Visitation services. The pilot program will apply the method being developed by the AMW to gather information on the potentially transformational effect of the animation-making process in this population at a critical developmental stage. More specifically, the research will probe the potential of the process to support the participants' resilience and development of positive adjustment skills. Working in partnership with the Lubbock Domestic Relations Office, the researchers (Drs. Orfila, Ortega, and Trejos-Castillo) will gain access to the targeted population served by the Domestic Relations Office and offer them to participate in the Animation-Making Workshops. These consist of 12 weekly sessions where participants create a short animation based on their life experiences. Subsequently, these participants will be invited to join focus groups and/or individual interview session lead by Dr. Trejos-Castillo to elaborate on the animated stories created during the workshops, and the connections with the participant's life experiences. The participants will also be invited to showcase their animations as well as the preparatory material they created during the workshop in an exhibition organized by the 
researchers. The researchers' goal is to coordinate one or more groups of no more than 15 participants between 10 and 16 years old in the Summer/ Fall of 2021. This pilot program will hopefully be only the first stage of a prolonged collaboration with both Dr. Trejos-Castillo (Dept. of Human Development and Family Sciences at TTU), and Dr. Gene Valentini and his staff at the Office Lubbock Domestic Relations Office.

Project Name: A Certain Trumpet: Building Inclusivity through Composition and Performance 
Project PI: Andy Stetson 
Project Abstract: Diversity within the arts is one of the pressing issues facing musician communities today. Through this project's scope of work, we will accomplish a series of goals to address diversity and increase inclusion within the trumpet community while laying the groundwork for a future federal grant submission. We will partner with a recognized organization committed to these same goals, develop a broad repertoire of new music from composers drawn from underrepresented communities, record and disseminate these new works, and ultimately seek NEA support for the establishment of a diversity-centric center that will apply these same methods and goals throughout the global community of musicians.

Project Name: The Art of Subversive Mimicry: Reclaiming the Language of Manipulation in the 
Post-Truth Era 
Project PI: Maia Toteva 
Project Abstract: In periods of ideological crises, writers, artists, and performers often turn to creating insurgent mirror images of political manipulation. In the past decades, artistic groups and alliances such as Chto Delat in Russia, NSK in Slovenia, Orange Alternative in Poland, The Yes Men in the United States, and numerous others have responded to political oppression and ideology not by direct opposition, but rather by coopting and speaking the language of power to communicate their own counterpoints and truths. Embracing mimicry rather than opposition as a subversive political strategy, such tactics appropriate both the spectacle and the stereotypes of socio-political domination and, by doing so, expose its animus, contradictions, and will to power. Even though these modes of artistic engagement have strong associations with the ideological regimes of late socialism, this kind of “walking with the enemy” has become a key artistic response to our own era of ideological confusion and authoritarian resurgence. 

Together with a team of two co-investigators, Gediminas Gasparavičius (University of Akron) and Tom Williams (Belmont University), I plan to publish an edited volume and series of podcasts that would present—for the first time in the history of the subject—an in-depth transcultural analysis of insurgent mirror practices. Titled Walking with the Enemy: Reclaiming the Language of Power and Manipulation in the Post-Truth Era, our volume and podcast series will describe this transnational artistic approach as “subversive mimicry.” We describe “subversive mimicry” as a poignant global strategy in which artists and cultural figures imitate the language, symbolism, and structures of domination by adopting its rationalizations of power, including propaganda, ideology, stereotypes, and other mechanisms that sustain the status quo.

Project Name: Life Science Drawing, Illustration, and Printed Forms 
Project PI: Sangmi Yoo 
Project Abstract: The proposed work for my project will focus on Life Science Drawing, Illustration and Printed Forms. This idea is based on iconic images that are created through personal memory and today's everyday environment, simulating the perception and memory from a collective experience. The funding received from TCVPA will support my current creative project, advancement of my artistic practice, curriculum development of illustration program in the School of Art and my NEH grant application in Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic-Serving Institutions.