In Round 16 of the Alternative Exposure Grant Program, Southern Exposure is awarding $65,000 to 15 projects, each receiving an award of at least $4,000. Alternative Exposure grants fund the unincorporated, independent work of artists and collaboratives who invigorate and transform the San Francisco Bay Area arts community. The awarded public projects will take place in the San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties.

This year we are additionally honored to present the first Alternative Exposure Award in memory of Jonathan Bernbaum. Multi-media and video artist Jonathan Bernbaum tragically died in the 2016 Oakland Ghost Ship Fire at the age of 34. The Jonathan Bernbaum Memorial Award honors his work and his commitment to the Bay Area artistic community by supporting a project that focuses on performance or multi-media work.

This year’s Jonathan Bernbaum Memorial Award recipient, black hole cinematheque, was chosen from amongst the pool of Alternative Exposure applicants.

14 more Alternative Exposure recipients were selected from 133 applications: 2Crip4U, A Hxstory of Renting, CLUB OBSIDIAN, Crisis Club Gallery, Feral Fabric, Queer Ancestors Project RESISTS!, Labor is a Medium, Macro Waves, Oakland Workers Fund, Roses Too, Sming Sming Books, The Indigo Project, Urban Prophets Illustrated, and VR Art Camp.

The 2022 grantees were selected by an outside panel of artist organizers and former grantees, yétundé olagbaju, Shirin Makaremi, and Nick Wylie. 

To date, Southern Exposure has awarded a total of $1,077,400 to 327 artists and projects, an enormous milestone for this project, thanks to major support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.