TENDER: A Caribbean Arts Regranting Initiative has shared their jury report with the public. See the list of grantees below, followed by excerpts from the TENDER JURY REPORT 2025. [See the full report at TENDER.]
We are delighted to share that the twenty 2025 TENDER Grantees are:
1.1: 3 Barbadian recent graduates at USD $1,500.00 each
Déandra Grace Daniel
Lyneisha Ince
Alexander Devere Newton
1.2: 3 Caribbean recent graduates at USD $1,500.00 each
Manuela Corji (Dominican Republic)
Sasha-Kay Hinds (Jamaica)
Stephanie Jeanty (Haiti)
2.1: 3 Barbadian emerging artists at USD $2,500.00 each
Kia Redman
Safía Isabella Stoute
Akilah Watts
2.2: 4 Caribbean emerging artists at USD $2,500.00 each
Vesuhely Americaan (Curaçao)
Irvin Aguilar (Aruba)
Johanna Castillo (Dominican Republic)
Shari Petti (Trinidad & Tobago)
3.1: 3 Caribbean mid-career artists at USD $3,500.00 each
Shannon Alonzo (Trinidad & Tobago)
Louisa Marajo (Martinique)
Sarabel Santos Negrón (Puerto Rico)
4.1: 1 Barbadian established artist at USD $7,500.00
Kraig Yearwood
4:2: 1 Caribbean established artist at USD $7,500.00
David Gumbs (St. Martin)
5.1: 1 Barbadian Art Organisation at USD $3,500.00
Punch Creative Arena
5.2: 1 Caribbean Organisation at USD $3,500.00
Tabonuco (Puerto Rico)
TENDER: A Caribbean Arts Regranting Programme is supported by The Fresh Milk Art Platform Inc. and its partners the Barbados National Cultural Foundation, the Clara Lionel Foundation and the Panta Rhea Foundation. Between the announcement of the open call on May 5th 2025, and the deadline on June 6th, 2025, Fresh Milk received 140 submissions from all linguistic parts of the Caribbean of which 116 were eligible. This included submissions from the following nineteen countries: Anguilla, Aruba, Barbados, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, The Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, US Virgin Islands. [. . .]
The meeting was chaired and moderated by Annalee Davis, Founding Director, Fresh Milk, and Katherine Kennedy, Director of Programmes, Fresh Milk.
General comments on the TENDER 2025 Open Call
The members of the jury were generally impressed by the broad range of ideas and the number of applications to the second iteration of the TENDER Open Call. Applicants were working across a wide range of media including animation, ceramics, drawing, digital art, heraldry, illustration, installation, new media, printmaking, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, sound, textiles, and video. Proposals were concerned with a wide cross-section of themes including ancestral knowledge systems, the archive, climate crisis, decolonial aesthetics, gender, grief, healing, humour, identity, intimacy, migration, spirituality, relations with the natural world, nostalgia, oral traditions, resistance, ritual, and the subconscious.
Submissions reflected the diverse linguistic representation of the Caribbean with a strong pool of applicants demonstrating a high quality of work. Based on a very high number of submissions in the Emerging/Mid-Career Artists category in 2024, the decision was made to make this into two groups in 2025. [. . .]
The Arts Organisations; Art Historians/Writers/Researchers; and Curators categories had small numbers of submissions, revealing that the ecosystem for the training, development and sustenance of these categories is lacking. The jury determined that, due to no eligible submissions for the Barbadian mid-career category, three additional grants would instead be awarded to Barbadian and Caribbean artists in the well-subscribed Emerging Artists category. The category with the highest purse, the Established Artists category, once again had fewer submissions than anticipated.
Additional observations by the jury reflected that artists are operating in an uneven playing field in different parts of the region due to varying levels of experience in applying for opportunities such as this one, English language proficiency, and equal educational access at the tertiary level. In many cases, applicants articulated their need for self-care, the desire for time to focus on furthering their practices and opportunities for artistic development. In general, the submissions indicated basic personal and professional needs were unmet in the sector and that creatives living and working across the wider Caribbean continue to function in spite of the challenging circumstances in a still underdeveloped arena. [. . .]
The final list of twenty grantees includes 14 women, 4 men and 2 arts organisations from all linguistic parts of the Caribbean including Aruba, Barbados, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, St. Martin and Trinidad and Tobago. [. . .]
For full report, visit https://freshmilkbarbados.com/projects/tender/
[Photo above by Dondré Trotman: Barbadian TENDER Grantees 2025 with the Fresh Milk Team.
L-R: Katherine Kennedy (Fresh Milk), Kraig Yearwood, Safia Stoute, Kia Redman, Deandra Daniel, Ewan Atkinson (PUNCH), Akilah Watts, Allison Thompson (PUNCH), Lyneisha Ince, Alexander Newton, Annalee Davis (Fresh Milk).]