Introducing VSCO Voices 2019 - Meet The Creators
Together with VSCO, we’re excited to announce this year’s VSCO Voices grant recipients. For the second year in a row, the program will support five creators with mentorship and funding to make art that empowers marginalized communities in the United States. This year’s theme, Style, drew many remarkable applications.
We learned about many diverse communities across the country through your proposals, and we were moved by your passion and commitment to sharing their stories with the world.
We’d like to congratulate Alexandra Cuerdo, Cori Corinne, Dave Kasnic, Lauren Vied Allen, and Khristopher “Squint” Sandifer as recipients of our 2019 VSCO Voices grant. Meet the creators below, and be sure to follow their journey over the next six months on VSCO.
– Alexandra Cuerdo
Alexandra “Allie” Cuerdo is a Filipino-American writer and director who seeks to drive awareness about issues of cultural and religious identity within the queer Asian and Filipino community.
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Project: Dancing On My Own will be a short documentary film about Bubble T, a radical queer dance party in New York that celebrates queer Asian visibility in the nightlife space. Alexandra’s project aims to capture the vibrant, joyful essence of the LGBTQ Asian community and, in doing so, expand the understanding of queerness to include the Asian community and Asian heritage.
Follow Alexandra Cuerdo (alexandracuerdo)
– Cori Corinne
Cori Corinne is an independent, multidisciplinary designer and creator based in Ohio. She combines her background in design and art to solve problems, tell stories, and create compelling, interactive experiences.
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Project: Dress. Code. will be an interactive photography exhibit that explores the ways in which women face double standards in regards to their workplace attire. This project will showcase how a woman’s identity can become fragmented through the lifelong analysis of her appearance, while sparking dialogue about how to foster a more open, creative environment for women everywhere.
Follow Cori Corinne (coricorinne)
– Dave Kasnic
Dave Kasnic is a photographer who was raised in rural Washington State and is currently based in Chicago, Illinois. His work surrounds race, community, and religion.
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Project: Alpha & Omega Ministries is a photography project that will document the life and congregation of Pastor Martha Freeman, who is a pillar of positivity in her often-marginalized and narrowly-depicted community of Garden Homes, Milwaukee. Dave intends to capture the unconditional welcoming that is offered by Martha and her church, and in doing so, tell the true story of the community.
Follow Dave Kasnic (davidkasnic)
– Lauren Vied Allen
Lauren Vied Allen is a visual creative who focuses on culinary traditions, food, people, and the crossroads where they collide. She creates compelling photographic stories as a means of understanding cultural identities and enriching her community.
Location: Goldsboro, NC
Project: Grito will be a photography and video project that showcases the vibrant and lively art of ballet folklórico, as performed by immigrant and first-generation Mexican American youth in Eastern North Carolina. Through this project, Lauren aims to capture the cultural richness and resilience of a community that has been marginalized by natural disasters and systemic racism.
Follow Lauren Vied Allen (@viedfinder)
– Khristopher “Squint” Sandifer
Khristopher “Squint” Sandifer is a multifaceted creative whose diverse skill set includes branding, film directing, photography, and public relations. Currently, he is focused on narrowing a cultural gap in the innovation economy by exposing underrepresented communities to innovators and inventors like themselves.
Location: East Palo Alto, CA
Project: Through photo and video, The Untold Innovations of Jazz, will capture the practices and mindsets of world-class jazz musicians. It will showcase jazz musicians as inventors of their craft, with the hopes of inspiring other creative, but underrepresented communities.
Alongside Alexandra, Corrie, David, Lauren, and Squint, we’ll continue to share these projects as they evolve.
