Visual artists Genevieve Quick, Zeina Barakeh and Esteban Raheem Abdul Raheem Samayoa have been named the recipients of the 2024 San Francisco Bay Area Artadia Awards. This year’s awardees each receive $15,000 to use in whatever way they see fit and will have access to Artadia’s network of artists, curators and collectors.
Formed in San Francisco in 1999 in direct response to the National Endowment for the Arts cutting funding, Executive Director Patton Hindle said Artadia has supported 104 local artists so far. In 2023, the prize money increased by $5,000 for the first time in five years, coming at a critical time for those facing challenges brought on by the pandemic. The awards, announced Tuesday, July 9, now come as budget cuts continue to threaten California arts programs. In late June, California legislators agreed on a 27% decrease in funding to the California Arts Council, the main source of arts funding for the state, for the next two years. The agreement follows Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget proposal, which called for a 38% decrease in funding to the organization.
Barakeh, who was named a finalist in 2020, said she was “over the moon” about receiving the award after applying seven times. Though she appreciates the financial support, what she values the most is the recognition for the hard work, patience and commitment she has put into her art over the years.
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Barakeh grew up in Beirut and moved to the Bay Area in 2006 during the Israel-Hezbollah War. One of the last individuals to receive a visa before the American embassy in Beirut closed, she enrolled as a master of fine arts student at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she later went on to serve as the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs. Drawing upon her experiences in Lebanon, Barakeh focuses on the complexities of war. In her research and art, she addresses emerging military technologies, human enhancement and, most recently, cyber warfare. “I would describe my work as very intricate, very heavy on research, very layered. Everything is very deliberate, because I try to have some agency in the process of my own work,” she said. “This is something that I can actually control.” Barakeh plans to use the award money for her ongoing project “Cybotage,” which she began in 2012. The large-scale multimedia project makes use of overlaid mapping systems to explore the parallels between the spread of war in a region and the spread of cancer in the body.
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