2024 Summer GRANTEES

Visual Grantee - Spandita Malik

The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Summer Visual Grant to Spandita Malik for her upcoming solo exhibition, “Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance”

Spandita Malik’s work delves into the global socio-political landscape, with a focus on women’s rights and gendered violence. Specializing in process-based photography, her recent projects include photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India. Her practice in expanded documentary and social practice challenges traditional documentary aesthetics, aiming to decolonize the representation of India.

In Sanskrit, jāḷī refers to the openwork seen in architecture, metalwork, and embroidery. In this context, jāḷī signifies an openwork stitch that forms a delicate mesh structure, symbolizing the interconnectedness of stories and experiences.

Music Grantee - Eden Bareket

The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Summer Music Grant to Eden Bareket for his new album “Zaman”.

Eden Bareket is a distinguished saxophonist, composer, producer, and arranger, known for his unique style and genre-spanning versatility.

The idea for Zaman was born when Eden started looking into his family history. As he was learning about his ancestors, he unearthed many stories. he learned that his ancestors took great risks and made extreme life changes to pursue a better future. Eden imagined what it felt like to be in those moments and if that could be translated into music.

Music Production Grantee - inti figgis-vizueta

The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Summer Music Grant to inti figgis-vizueta for the new album “Rothko plays inti figgis-vizueta”.

inti figgis-vizueta is a composer and educator who works to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans & Indigenous futures. Described as a “rising new music star” (LA Times), with “smooth and serrated melodies” (New York Times), and “wrought from a language we’d do well to learn” (Washington Post),.

“Rothko plays inti figgis-vizueta” is a collection of string quartets written over the past six years, performed and recorded by The Rothko String Quartet. Commissioned by long-established groups such as the Kronos Quartet, Attacca Quartet, JACK Quartet, and Spektral Quartet, these works showcase new experimentations with the classic ensemble.

Literature Production Grantee - Soraya Palmer

The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Summer Literature Grant to Soraya Palmer for her novel “A Visibility Spell”.

Soraya Palmer is the author of The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts, which has been named a best or most anticipated novel by Today, Elle, Ms. Magazine, and Goodreads among others. The novel is currently a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for debut fiction.

A Visibility Spell investigates the ways that racism seeps into our subconscious desires, negatively impacting our mental and physical health. My book poses two central questions: where does the Black woman go to escape invisibility if she can’t exist within her own imagination? And how do we as Black women learn to re-imagine ourselves back into existence?

Performance Grantee - André M. Zachery

The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Summer Performance Grant to André M. Zachery for his solo performance “Against Gravity: Flying Afrikans + Other Urban Legends“.

André M. Zachery is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist of Haitian and African American descent, as the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group his practice, research, and community engagement artistically focused on merging choreography, technology, and Black cultural practices through multimedia work.

Against Gravity: Flying Afrikans + Other Urban Legends is André M Zachery’s choreographic solo self-examination of Black masculinity through history, memory, text, poetry and geography. Against Gravity... is a chance to unpack how the expectations and pressures cast by their lives, deaths and pursuant mythologies shaped Black men who came of age in the city they left.