liquid blackness Awarded Mellon Foundation Grant

ATLANTA — liquid blackness, founded by Georgia State University Distinguished University Professor of Moving Image Studies Alessandra Raengo, has been awarded a three-year grant of $750,000 from the Mellon Foundation to support the study of aesthetic practices in the contemporary arts of the Black diaspora.

As principal investigator, Raengo will guide the expansion of liquid blackness’s decade-long practice of fostering “Encounters with the Black Arts,” programs designed for scholars, curators, artists and the public. She will be joined by co-PI Lauren McLeod Cramer (Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto).

“liquid blackness’s research on the visual arts of the Black diaspora has demonstrated the presence of Black aesthetic sensibilities in contemporary sonic and visual culture. It has shown how moving nimbly between filmmaking and installation art, high art and popular culture, art galleries and digital platforms, Black contemporary artists are producing the most consequential visual aesthetics of our times," Raengo said. "With the Mellon Foundation's support and liquid blackness's unique combination of critical, pedagogical and archival interventions, the initiative will build the Black aesthetic fluency and best practices in the study of Black arts and artists necessary to understand their social value in scholarly and other social settings. It is affirming to see that something that began more than a decade ago as a labor of love has found the resources to continue and expand.”

With the support of the Mellon Foundation, over the next three years, liquid blackness will:

• Develop pedagogical toolsets that enhance its open-access pedagogy.
• Advance a deeper understanding of Black aesthetics and its role within the contemporary creative industries.
• Build a self-sustaining archive of Black arts of the present.
• Expand the range and depth of its community-facing Black arts programming and mentorship through a combination of symposia and study groups.

The Mellon grant will also fund four new research, artistic and managerial positions. School of Film, Media & Theatre alumni will fill all four positions: Research Fellow Daren Fowler (Ph.D. '22), Creative Fellow Derrick Jones (Ph.D. ’24), Artist-in-Residence Anna Winter (M.F.A. ’25) and Project Manager Corey Couch (Ph.D. ’25).

Raengo is the founding editor-in-chief of the award-winning liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies (Duke University Press) and founder of the liquid blackness research group that initiated the journal in 2013. She is the author of "On the Sleeve of the Visual: Race as Face Value" (Dartmouth College Press, 2013) and of "Critical Race Theory and Bamboozled" (Bloomsbury Press, 2016). She has published widely on the visual arts and filmmaking of the Black diaspora, racial capitalism and modes of Black “liquidity” in the contemporary arts.

Founded over a decade ago, liquid blackness has been devoted to the study of aesthetic practices in the contemporary arts of the Black diaspora. With the work of these artists and scholars, liquid blackness will continue its current programs and expand its research and public-facing events.

To learn more about liquid blackness, click here.