Washington Award Winners

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi
Interdisciplinary Arts
Cash Prize

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi is a queer Palestinian performance artist, a Taurus, and a cool breeze. His performance work has been programmed at the Poetry Foundation, OUTSider Fest, the Arab-American National Museum, VisArts, Mosaic Theater, the CapitalFringe Fest, and elsewhere, and has been supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts. His poetry and prose have appeared inMizna, Peach Mag, Strange Horizons, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Howlround, Apex Magazine, and have been nominated for thePuschart and Best of the Net prizes. He is the recipient of fellowships from Halcyon Arts Lab, VisArts, Rhizome DC, Radius of ArabAmerican Writers, the Arab-American National Museum, and theDesert Nights Rising Stars Conference. Find more at fargotbakhi.com

Robert Woofter
Dance
Cash Prize

Robert “Bambi” Woofter is a gogo dancer, drag dramaturgist, and director of DC-based production company haus of bambi (hausofbambi.com). His genderless and gendermore work is dedicated to making space for the complexity of queer perspectives through dance and has been commissioned by Vogue, The Kennedy Center, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and The City of Alexandria. Woofter organizes queer-centric events across DC and is a 2022-2024 Dance Place artist-in-residence.

Tarik “Konshens The MC” Davis
Music
Cash Prize

Tarik ‘Konshens The MC’ Davis is an International hip-hop artist, songwriter, Global Arts educator, Youth advocate & Inspirational Speaker from Washington D.C. He is Founder & CEO of Edutainment Unlimited LLC (Arts Education/Entertainment Company), former Governor on the Grammy Chapter Board, current Voting Member of the Grammy Recording Academy, Grammy Museum Artist Educator, UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification) Land Ambassador and U.S Cultural Ambassador (State Department). He is also the MC and founder of ‘Classically Dope’, a groundbreaking and innovative classical, hip-hop group which merges original hip-hop lyrics with original classical arrangements. Being featured at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and has been highlighted performer on Fox, ABC and CBS networks, the Washingtonian Magazine, The Washington Post and more. As an artist and innovator, Konshens The MC stands at the forefront of the evolution of hip-hop. www.konshens.com

Ọmọlará Williams McCallister
Visual Arts
Cash Prize

Ọmọlará Williams McCallister’s (pronouns: o, love, beloved) artistic journey began in church at 7 years old as a classically trained vocalist and bassist. O has actively organized around social justice issues on the local, regional and national levels since age 13. Ọmọlará’s upbringing in the Black south is the foundation for O’s work. Love maintains an active studio practice that explores social hierarchies–race, gender, ability, etc.– in the US South and the conditions that create or subvert them. O’s work is a call and response blend of sculpture, performance, installation, ritual, space holding, community building, surface design, adornment, word, sound, song, movement, moving images and photography. The roles that Ọmọlará steps into include artist, educator, organizer, cultural strategist, conjurer. In all forms O’s work is immersive and interactive, it is co-authored by the people who inspire and encounter it. Ọ has garnered numerous awards and accolades to support love’s work. Fellowships that Ọ has won in 2021 include: Post Graduate Residency fellowship at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA); Nellie MaeRowe Distinguished Fellowship at Hambidge Center for the CreativeArts (Rapbun, GA), to name a few. Ọmọlará has been invited to lead workshops at institutions including the National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington D.C.); Creative Capital (NYC); Brooklyn Museum (NYC) and others.

Zsudayka Nzinga
Visual Arts
Fillmore Studio Prize

Zsudayka Nzinga is a fine artist, curator and educator from Denver, CO living in Washington, DC. Her work is largely focused on mixed media portraiture of American life including themes of motherhood and culture. Her pieces explore patterns and textures using acrylic, oil, decorative and hand dyed paper, fabric, thread and ink on canvas. She also makes jewelry using silver, wood, resin and precious stones. She is a proud mother of 3 children and wife to artist, James Terrell.

Sarah Beth Oppenheim
Dance
Fillmore Studio Prize

I believe in deepest plie to bend traditions, antiracist pedagogy to bend academia, and dance as an everything salve. As a Teaching Artist Mom, I mine, swap, and alchemically mix choreographic research, community engagement, and arts & crafts between stage, studio, classroom, and nursery. Work/love finds me teaching/making/womanifesting as a Teaching Artist at Dance Place, Professorial Lecturer at American University, Education Coordinator at BlackLight Summit, and Artistic Director of Heart Stück Bernie.

Jessica Valoris
Interdisciplinary Arts
Fillmore Studio Prize

Jessica Valoris is an interdisciplinary artist and community facilitator. Weaving together mixed media painting, sound collage, and ritual performance, Jessica creates sacred spaces that activate local histories, ancestral wisdom, personal reflection, and community care. Inspired by the earth-based traditions of her Black American and Jewish ancestry, Jessica explores ideas through the lens of metaphysics, spirituality, and Afrofuturism. She uses art as a catalyst for collective healing and transformative well-being.

Callie Rae
Visual Arts
Fillmore Studio Prize

Calli is a self taught visual artist with acrylic as her medium. Her bold and edgy work reflects an impressive crossover of abstract, realism, abstract expressionism, and pop culture. Her inspiration is creating contemporary art in hopes that her viewers can relate, feel inspired to embrace their imperfections, and appreciate fine art in a world where everything is now digital. Her hopes are that they allow themselves to tap into their unknown, create and dream even with absolutely no experience.

Lory Ivey Alexander
Visual Arts
Fillmore Studio Prize

Lory Ivey Alexander is a DC-native artist exploring history, memory, and identity. Best known for her use of color, sculptural paintings, and lyrical writing, Lory facilitates meditations on the richness of Black and Indigenous American identity. A connector of people and dots, Lory’s most recent project is BlackBreathing.com, a social practice to promote trauma healing in Black and Brown communities. She founded Abstract Sisterhood to support abstract and conceptual women artists in the African Diaspora.

Jordann Wine
Visual Arts
Fillmore Studio Prize

Jordann Wine is a Washington, D.C. based artist whose meditative abstractions hope to provide the viewer with a visual respite from the chaos of daily living. She holds a BA from New York University; where she studied Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She has exhibited her work in numerous solo shows locally, as well as national and international group exhibitions. Jordann has murals and public art locally and nationally.

Chloe Varelidi
Interdisciplinary Arts
Fillmore Studio Prize

Chloe Varelidi is an architect, artist, designer and educator. She is a graduate of the Design & Technology MFA program at Parsons  The New School for Design as well as an Eyebeam Art & Technology Resident Alumna. Chloe is a Halcyon alumna, an AIGA 50, four times awardee and in 2021 her project Follies was nominated for Toy Of The Year the top industry award.