Pillsbury House Theatre is proud to announce the two recipients of the 2025 McKnight Fellowships for Community-Engaged Artists: DejaJoelle and Mai’a Williams. Identifying and sup-porting exceptional mid-career Minnesota artists, the McKnight Fellowships for Community-Engaged Artists provide recipients with a $25,000 award, resources to meet with local and national arts and cultural profes-sionals, and works with the fellows to support their professional development and new creative initiatives. These fellowships are funded by a generous grant from the McKnight Foundation and administered by Pillsbury House Theatre. For more information about the fellowship program and future opportunities, visit our website at https://pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org/mcknight-artist-culture-bearer-fellowship/ The 2025 McKnight fellows were selected from a group of 36 applicants by a panel of arts professionals of varying backgrounds whose careers intersect with community-engaged artistic practice in different ways. This year’s panelists were; Helina Metaferia (NYC, NY), Fox Spears (Orlando, FL), and Eric Perez (Chicago, IL).

About the Fellows

DejaJoelle is a Black-centered Healing Artist, Choreographer, Director, and Cultural Healing Curator. She believes Dance serves as our connection to ourselves, our communities, and our overall Divinity. DejaJoelle creates in-tentional spaces for Black Community to discover their rituals and practices toward Healing using Dance, Body Reclamation, and Revolutionary Love Practices.

Mai’a Williams is a writer and artist, living in Minnesota. It was their living and working with Egyptian, Palestinian, Congolese, and Central American indigenous mothers in resistance communities that inspired their life-giving work andart-making practices. They are the co-editor of the antholo-gy, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines and the author of the memoirs, This is How We Survive: Revolutionary Mothering, War, and Exile in the 21st Century, The Future of Love, Apocalypse Here, and In a World Full of Sleeping Giants, You Get to be Awake.

About the Panelists

Helina Metaferia is an interdisciplinary artist working across collage, assemblage, video, performance, and social engagement. Metaferia received her MFA from Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She’s held solo exhibitions at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; RISD Art Museum, Providence, RI; and Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA. Her work was included in the 2023 Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates. Metaferia is an Assistant Professor of Social Practice Art at Brown University in the Visual Art department, and lives and works in New York City.
Fox Spears is a contemporary visual artist as well as Program Manager of Fellowships for First Peoples Fund. He is an enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe and currently resides with his husband in Orlando, Florida.
Eric Perez is an artist and educator in the city of Chicago. Primarily a photographer, his work focuses on his experience of being a Marine during his two deployments as part of the Global War on Terror. As Project Manager for Floating Museum, he deploys his skills in photography and videography to document Floating Museum’s projects. He was selected to be a National Endowment for the Humanities Veteran Fellow (2022) with the emerging Veterans Art Movement. In 2023, he was awarded the annual David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Arts Foundation award and residency at the Hyde Park Art Center.

About The McKnight Foundation

The McKnight Foundation’s Arts & Culture program is one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the country. Established in 1981, The McKnight Artist and Culture Bearer Fellowship Program is a single program awarding 48 fellowships across 15 disciplines. The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts in Minnesota, neuroscience, and international crop research. The Foundation has approximately $2.3 billion in assets and grants about $90 million a year.

About Pillsbury House and Theatre (PH+T)

From the Makers Series to Chicago Avenue Project and Naked Stages, Pillsbury House + Theatre brings audiences closer—to the edge, to the actors, to affordable adventurous theatre, to fellow audience members, and to a strong, vibrant community. Now in its 34th year, the theatre continues to inspire enduring change towards a just society. An integral part of Pillsbury United Communities, one of the largest human services organizations in the state, Pillsbury House + Theatre demonstrates that the highest quality art is an integral part of all healthy communities, winning community trust, accolades and awards across the metro and nationally. Learn more about our programs at opportunities at www.pillsburyhouseandtheatre.org.
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