Good Job MoHA

MoHA's Greatest Hits

Since 2012, the Museum of Human Achievement (MoHA) has championed creativity and inclusivity in Austin. Founded by artists and community leaders, MoHA tackles cultural displacement head-on, offering a home for artists and creatives at risk of being driven out by the city’s rapid economic changes. But MoHA's impact goes beyond Austin, with artists and programs gaining local, national, and international recognition. Below are just a few highlights from the past 12 years!

Selected Big Impressive Grants

Grant	How We Did	More Info
City of Austin "Thrive" grant	Awarded the maximum amount of funding ($150,000) for two years for our arts & cultural work advancing racial equity, and representing the LGBTQIA+ and disability communities.	Thrive Grants provide focused investment to sustain and grow arts organizations that are deeply rooted in and reflective of Austin’s diverse cultures.
Grant for Technology Opportunities Program	Multi-year recipient, awarded maximum amount of funding ($35,000), for work addressing digital equity and access, specifically our CATS+ program.	The Grant for Technology Opportunities Program (GTOPs) is a $400,000 a year grant directed at improving the community's ability to fully participate in the digital society. GTOPs provides four award pathways for local Austin nonprofit groups to apply for funding.
National Endowment for the Arts grants (various)	6 time recipient at various funding levels ($10,000-$40,000) for various community-driven programs.	The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent federal agency that is the largest funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide and a catalyst of public and private support for the arts.
Mid-America Arts Alliance	Awarded $40,000 to support critical day-to-day operating costs.	Mid-America Arts Alliance is a nonprofit, Regional Arts Organization that serves Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. We focus on strengthening communities and improving lives through extraordinary cultural experiences.
Texas Commissionon the Arts (various)	Awarded various grants ($1,000-$13,5000) over the years to support specific programming goals.	TCA supports a diverse and innovative arts community in Texas by providing resources to enhance economic development, arts education, cultural tourism and artist sustainability initiatives.
United Way + Austin Community Foundation All Together ATX award	Awarded $10,000 to support cultural programming.	All Together ATX, a joint effort from Austin Community Foundation and United Way for Greater Austin, today announced $2.2 million in grant funding will be disbursed to 70 nonprofits working to support communities experiencing economic and health-related hardships caused by COVID-19 in Central Texas. Awards Top 3 Museums in Austin - Concept Animals - 2023 Glasstire’s Best of 2023 - The Shabooming/Edward Normalhands - Glasstire - 2023 Glasstire’s Best of 2019 - Janet40: Li Po - Glasstire - 2019 Top 10 Fine Art Moments - Cage Match Project - Austin Chronicle 2018 Best Shopping - Early 90s Shopping Experience - Austin Chronicle 2017 Best Body of Work (nomination) - Austin Critics Table 2017 Best Group Gallery Exhibit - XOXO (nomination) - Austin Critics Table 2017 Best Independent Project - Cage Match Project - Austin Critics Table 2017 Top 10 Contemporary Art Galleries in Austin, TX - Austin Chronicle 2016 Best “Not A Museum” Museum - Austin Chronicle 2016 Best Body of Work - Austin Critics Table 2016 Best Independent Project (nomination) - FinalCon - Austin Critics Table 2016 Best Independent Project (nomination) - Spam’s: The Internet : The Restaurant - Austin Critics Table 2016 Best Work of Art / Independent or Public Project - AHoM - Austin Critics Table 2014 They did this thing at MoHA and now they’re famous! Yuliya Lanina, multiple exhibits at MoHA then onto: Fulbright Fellow (Vienna, Austria), Headlands Art Center (CA), Yaddo (NY), Artpace (SA), Yaddo Fellowship (NY), Marble House Project (NY), The Puffin Foundation (NJ) Adrian Armstrong, studio space at MoHA and active collaborator with Brown State of Mind, now featured on Sotheby’s, Oprah, 6 emerging black artists: Cultured, and resident of NXTHVN Betelhem Makonnen - active collaborator and studio space at MoHA. Her work in photography, video, installation and writing is shown nationally and internationally– including Women & Their Work, The Contemporary Austin, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Big Medium, Le Musée des Abattoirs, and The Carver Museum, with performances and screenings at The Blanton Museum, IVAHM, and Casa Daros. Her work has been featured in a variety of publications including Artforum, NYT, Frieze, Hyperallergic, Zoetrope, O Menelick 2º Ato, Revista Lampejo, and Glasstire. In addition to her practice she co-organizes Addis Video Art Festival, a platform for video art in Ethiopia, and is a co-founder member of the Austin-based arts collective Black Mountain Project. Adrian Aguillera - MoHA studio member and collaborator. Currently enrolled in Cornell program, He has exhibited both nationally and internationally at The Philbrook Museum, The Contemporary Austin, Artpace San Antonio, The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, and The George Washington Carver Museum. Holland Andrews - Resident artists and collaborator in 206, now showing at the 2024 Whitney Biennial, United States Artists fellow. They have been reviewed in The Wire, the New York Times, Le Monde, La Repubblica, the Financial Times, the New Yorker, Electronic Sound, Uncut, and BBC Radio. Nadia Waheed - MoHA studio member - Nadia Waheed (b. 1992, Saudi Arabia) lives and works in Austin, TX. She graduated with a BFA in Painting & Drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. Recent exhibitions include: A Strange Icarus, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2023, solo); MATERNITY LEAVE: NONE OF WOMEN BORN, Nicodim in collaboration with the Green Family Foundation, Dallas, DISEMBODIED, Nicodim, New York (2023); Wonder Women II, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2022); Heavy Bend, Gallery 1957, London (2022, solo); YOU ME ME YOU, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2022); Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch, New York (2022); Madeleine Bialke, M. Florine Démosthène, Sahara Longe, Nadia Waheed, Alexander Berggruen, New York (2022); Am I Human Yet, Arsenal Contemporary New York (2021, solo); I Climb, I Backtrack, I Float, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami (2020, solo); Sacred Vessel (pt.2), Arsenal Contemporary, New York (2020); Crossroads, Patel Gallery, Toronto (2020). Rachel Mars - MoHA Resident Artist - I make performance work as a solo artist and collaborate with a range of artists including Greg Wohead [Story #1 / Gaping Hole] and nat tarrab as mars.tarrab - the 2017 Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award Winners. Recent theatre commissions have included HOME Manchester/The Entertainment Group, Leeds Playhouse, The Junction, Cambridge; Royal Court Tottenham; Fuel Theatre and Ovalhouse. Recent residencies include The Orchard Project and Asylum (NY), Playwrights Centre (Minneapolis), Horizon Showcase (UK) and Cove Park (UK) I was a fellow at the Birkbeck Centre of Contemporary Theatre UK. I teach workshops on University courses and artist development programmes in the UK, Canada and the US. I’ve been a regular contributor to 'Pause for Thought' on BBC Radio 2. Slava Mogutin - MoHA resident artist - Forced to leave Russia, Mogutin was granted political asylum in the US with the support of Amnesty International and PEN American Center. This asylum to the US became the first to be granted based on homophobic prosecution. Upon his arrival in New York City, he shifted his focus to visual art and became an active member of the downtown art scene. Since 1999, his photography has been exhibited internationally and featured in a wide range of publications including The New York Times, The Village Voice, i-D, Visionaire, L'Uomo Vogue, Secret Behavior, and BUTT. Justin Favela - Favela's work has been featured in museums and galleries across the United States and the United Kingdom. Justin is the recipient of the 2018 Alan Turing LGTBIQ Award in the category of International Artist. His podcast, Latinos Who Lunch, won the Best of Vegas 2018 award for Best Local Podcast and was ranked number 3 on Remezcla's list of Latinx Podcasts. The podcast is co-hosted with art historian and curator Dr. Emmanuel Ortega; the duo talk about pop culture, politics, and various topics around their intersecting identities of being queer Latinx men working in art and academia.[6] Favela has had lectures at a number of universities to discuss what influences his art.[7][8] He also hosts the Art People Podcast where he has conversations with artists in a variety of mediums and practices. In 2021, Favela was awarded the Joan Mitchell Fellowship from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Sabrina Ellis - Sabrina Ellis was born in Houston. A theater kid and admittedly unpopular, Ellis started caring less and owning themselves. When Ellis moved to Austin in the 2000s, they brought that unique theatricality to the stage, first with the group Bobby Jealousy, then with the face-punching glam-punk energy of A Giant Dog, a group co-founded by fellow Houstonian and continued songwriting partner Andrew Cashen. A Giant Dog was signed to Merge Records for their 2nd album, 2016’s Pile. Ellis and Cashen also formed Sweet Spirit, a nine-piece outfit that really allowed Ellis to channel their early influence of watching bandleaders like Dezi Arnaz and Bo Diddley. Sweet Spirit’s debut album Cokomo came out in 2015 on Nine Mile Records, and the group eventually also signed to Merge Records for the release of their 3rd album, 2020’s Trinidad. Between all of Ellis’s projects, they’ve shared stages with artists like Jack White, Ty Segall, Spoon, and Jawbreaker. Ellis’s solo work has been produced by Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace, and they’ve accumulated more Austin Music Awards than one can count. Sam Rofles - Studio space at MoHA - Rolfes' practice has expressed itself across a spectrum of formats, from livestream improvisational comedy, to live animation on stage, print design for fashion collections, album covers, and music videos for collaborators including Lady Gaga, Danny Elfman, Holly Herndon, Danny L Harle, Metallica, Amnesia Scanner, Lunice, Dezel Curry, Arca, Nike, Adult Swim, and music festivals across the world. Everest Pipkin - Gallery Director at MoHA - From 2011 to 2013, Pipkin ran Wardenclyffe Gallery, an Austin multidisciplinary art space. In 2013, Pipkin was a part of exhibitions at Greyduck Gallery, The Texas Biennial, and Fusebox Festival. In 2016, Pipkin contributed to the art game anthology Triennale Game Collection with the piece The Worm Room, using images from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. An updated standalone release was published in 2020. In 2020 Pipkin created a tool called "Image Scrubber" in response to Black Lives Matter protests that allowed protesters to blur out faces and remove metadata from their images, this tool became widely used during the movement to protect protesters' safety. That same year they also created Shell Song, an interactive audio narrative game that explores deepfake voice technologies and the data sets behind them. P1nkstar - collaborator at MoHA - p1nkstar™ (ur fav electr0nic pop superstar!!) creates a world far removed from this dimensions binaries through music and conceptual shows mixing saccharine beats with subversive lyrics, tiaras with ball gags, and body hair with hypnotic ponytails. Merging hyperpop with neo-perreo and club, she has been described as “early Aughts Paris Hilton on Hello Kitty steroids” by The Austin Chronicle, who recently crowned her as their Queer Pop Princess. In her live performances p1nkstar affectionately delivers pure pop performance, mixing witty vocals with electronic beats and video interludes with choreographed numbers and back-up dancers. Since her performance debut in late 2016, p1nkstar has shared bills with Charli XCX, Crystal Waters, The Ladies of LCD Soundsystem, Alok V. Menon, Dorian Electra, JD Samson, OSHUN, and Sateen. Poncili - Established in 2012 in Puerto Rico by twin brothers Pablo and Efrain Del Hierro, Poncili Creación is best known for their subversive public interventions using multiple media, experimental narratives, and an assemblage of hand-crafted objects often made from salvaged foam stuffing and foam rubber. They have presented their work internationally in puppet festivals, galleries, museums, art fairs, music festivals, as well as communes, schools, bars, and bathrooms. Their work has been show on PBS, Pioneerworks, MoMA etc… Manik Nakra - His work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Texas and San Francisco, participated in The LINE Residency in 2020, and was included in his first institutional museum show at The Contemporary, Austin Texas in 2021. Sam Lavigne - He has exhibited work at the Whitney Museum, the Shed, Lincoln Center, SFMOMA, Pioneer Works, DIS, Ars Electronica, the New Museum. Selected works include Smell Dating with artist Tega Brain, White Collar Crime Risk Zones, The Good Life and The Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon. He has been named an Honoree at the Webby Awards twice. Grow your own Cloud - Our work has been recognised by the United Nations and EU Starts Prize. In 2022 we were named Science Breakthrough of the Year by Falling Walls. GYOC has been presented at major international forums such as WEF Davos and World Climate Summit 2019. Our founders have been covered by leading international media such as Netflix and RTL. Our work is regularly showcased by events such as SXSW and VivaTech as well as artistic exhibitions at Bozar, Telefonica Foundation and ZKM. In 2020 we were residents at Ginkgo Bioworks. Bridget Bandit - 1st time in drag at MoHA - Her first testimony against Senate Bill 12 went viral, both for her full drag look (the photo of which was named one of Time's Top 100 Photos of 2023) and because she pointed out the "absurdity" of the bill because, as someone who was assigned female at birth and who performs a feminine character, Bandit would not be bound by the proposed laws. During her second testimony against the bill, later in 2023, Bandit again appeared in drag, in a dress which featured the Texas flag and the names of the children killed in the 2022 Uvalde shooting and the 2023 Allen, Texas shooting, with the slogan "Defend our kids against gun violence. Restrict guns, not drag" on her back. After the bill was passed, Bandit was one of five plaintiffs in the ACLU's lawsuit against it. Tammie Rubin - Rubin has exhibited widely, selections include Project Row Houses, Houston, TX., the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY., George Washington Carver Museum, Austin, TX., Mulvane Art Museum, KS., Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN., The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, TX., Women & Their Work Gallery, Austin, TX., and C24 Gallery, New York, NY. She's represented by C24 Gallery, New York, NY., Galleri Urbane, Dallas, TX., & Rivalry Projects, Buffalo, NY. They are famous and have done cool things at MoHA Daveed Diggs Thurston Moore Bread and Puppet Theater Juliana Barwick Slava Mogutin Mykki Blanco Rachel Mars Jim Findlay Amanda Palmer Jad Fair No Age Bad Bad Not Good Anthony Fantano Helado Negro Silver Apples Flaming Lips Kenya Robinson Ken Vandermark Nástio Mosquito Guillermo Gomez-Pena Work shown/created/premiered at MoHA has gone onto being shown at: Non-local: MoMA, Gugenheim, Carnegie Hall, LACMA, NYU, Museo Jumex, Crystal Bridges, Whitney Museum, the Shed, Lincoln Center, SFMOMA, Pioneer Works, the New Museum, Meow Wolf, Burning Man Local: The Blanton, The Contemporary, Mexic-arte, The Elisabet Ney Museum, Bullock, The Thinkery, Govalle Elementary, Festivals: Cannes (France), Sundance (US), Dark Mofo (NZ), Ars Electronica (Austria), Roskilde (DK), Art Basel (US), Zona Maco (MX), Frieze Art Fair (US), Edinburgh Fringe (Scotland), Venice Biennial (Italy), Whitney Biennial (US), Fusebox (US), Bonnaroo (US), Coachella (US), Time Based Art Festival (US), Satellite Art Show (US), Performance is Alive (US) Work at MoHA has been commissioned by McDonald Observatory, Nike, Sony, Marvel, Mars and Facebook. Artist working at MoHA have one onto programs at: Yale, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, RISD, Other examples of recognition and reviews from print and online media include: NY Times, Smithsonian, Art in America, Vice, ARTnews, Artforum, Juxtapoz, NPR, Carnegie Mellon, CNN, Pitchfork, NPR, Austin-American Statesman, BOMB, Arts+Culture, KLRU, KVRX, KUT & Glasstire. Name Recognition Cool Stuff (partnerships, went and presented at, etc) Rachel Stuckey presented Welcome to my Homepage at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Additionally, the 2021 Homepage project Zoom Escaper by artist Sam Lavigne received a great deal of attention from a range of publications like The Guardian, The Verge, Vice, The Daily Show, and CNN (Lavigne). Striking a chord with a pandemic-era audience exacerbated by the endless rotation Zoom meetings, the internet based artwork Lavigne created demonstrates the ways that digital born art can reach countless audiences, encouraging critical dialogue on issues of modern life and the human experience. Welcome to my Homepage has been invited to participate in various lectures and panels on the topic, most recently as a panelist for the 2022 and 2021 Computer Art Study Days with the Smithsonian Institute, Archives of American Art. A full list of invited lectures and panels is included in the attached Bibliography for this proposal. Residency artists have also received local and national attention for the works created and exhibited through the program. Andie Flores’s Homepage project was recognized by leading regional art criticism publication Glasstire, for their Best of 2021 award.