Good Job MoHA
From MoHA Wiki
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 | About the Grant |
|---|---|---|
| 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 (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 multiple 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. |
Selected Best-Of Press
More Recognition and Reviews
MoHA artists and programs have been featured in:
- Art in America
- Artforum
- ARTnews
- Arts+Culture Texas
- Austin-American Statesman
- BOMB
- Carnegie Mellon
- CNN
- Glasstire
- Juxtapoz
- KLRU
- KVRX
- KUT
- The New York Times
- NPR
- Pitchfork
- Smithsonian
- Vice
Notable Members of the MoHA Family
Studio Members
| Artist | Bio |
|---|---|
| Adrian Aguillera | Adrian 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. He is currently an MFA candidate at Cornell. |
| Adrian Armstrong | Armstrong has been featured on Sotheby’s, Oprah, 6 emerging black artists: Cultured, and is a resident of NXTHVN. |
| Betelhem Makonnen | Makonnen's work in photography, video, installation and writing is shown nationally and internationally. 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. |
| Everest Pipkin (Gallery Director and Studio Member) | 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 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. |
| Sam Rofles | 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. |
| Nadia Waheed | Nadia has shown work at Nicodim (Los Angeles & New York), Jeffrey Deitch (Los Angrles & New York), Gallery 19557 (London), Arsenal Contemporary (New York), Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami), Patel Gallery (Toronto). She has a BFA in Painting & Drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. |
Resident Artists
| Artist | Bio | MoHA Events |
|---|---|---|
| Holland Andrews | 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. | Batman Returns Returns (Portland), Holland Andrews (Residency) |
| Brigitte Bandit | 1st time in drag at MoHA. Bandit's 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. After the bill was passed, Bandit was one of five plaintiffs in the ACLU's lawsuit against it. | Tanline Steamroller |
| Sabrina Ellis | Sabrina Ellis formed the band A Giant Dog, with songwriting partner Andrew Cashen. A Giant Dog was signed to Merge Records for their 2nd album, 2016’s Pile. 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. | Batman Returns Returns, Batman Returns Returns (Portland), Edward Normalhands, MoHA Alone: A Home Alone Musical |
| 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. In 2021, Favela was awarded the Joan Mitchell Fellowship from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. | All You Can Eat, Justin Favela, Justin Favela (Residency), Live in a Squareykah, Puddin's Student Government |
| Grow your own Cloud | Their work has been recognised by the United Nations and EU Starts Prize. In 2022 they 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. Their work is regularly showcased by events such as SXSW and VivaTech as well as artistic exhibitions at Bozar, Telefonica Foundation and ZKM. | Powerpointin' 2: REALTIME |
| Yuliya Lanina | Lanina had 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) | Bring Your Own Beamer, Its not you, its me A SelfieGauntlet, Shock and Awwww: Jump Scares but Cute, Spare the Rod, Tetractys and Yuliya Lanina, This is a Test of the Internal Emergency Broadcast System, Within, Above and Beyond |
| Sam Lavigne | Lavigne 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. | Are UXperienced, Curses, Making Something Real That Seems Fake, The APD Decruitment Initiative |
| Rachel Mars | Mars is an artist and performer. 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) Fellow at the Birkbeck Centre of Contemporary Theatre UK. | Next Year People, Our Carnal Hearts, Rachel Mars (Residency), Waffle Chat |
| Slava Mogutin | 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. 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. | Hanging with Slava, Imagine Ursula, Slava Mogutin (Residency), Slava Mogutin's Food Chain |
| Manik Nakra | Nakra's 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. | AHoM, ART BY THE POUND, Keeping Dreamtime, The Space Between: An Art Show of Custom Caskets |
| P1nkstar | P1nkstar is ur fav electr0nic pop superstar!! P1nkstar merges hyperpop with neo-perreo and club and 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. 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. | An Evening with P1nkstar, Y2K and ADiEAN, Batman Returns Returns, Dolly Fest 2019, Fantastic Arcade Retro(spective), Invocation of my Demon Sister, Its not you, its me A SelfieGauntlet, LIVE HARD (Die Hard: The Musical), MoHA Alone: A Home Alone Musical, P1nky and the Kwane: Another Soup Opera!, Puddin's Student Government, Starry Night Prom, Swim for SWOP, The Spinning Beach Ball of Death |
| 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… | AHoM, Explosioncita, Plasma Pool 5: John Cage Match, Poncili Creacion, Poncili Creacion (Residency) |
| 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. | Cage Match Project, Round VIII: This is Everything, Nerdy Thursdays |
Selected Hosted Artists
Since 2012, MoHA has hosted events with some pretty cool (read: famous) artists. Here are just a few of them:
What Starts at MoHA
Work shown/created/premiered at MoHA has gone onto:
Non-Texas
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
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)
Austin
The Blanton, The Contemporary, Mexic-arte, The Elisabet Ney Museum, Bullock, The Thinkery, Govalle Elementary
Commissions
McDonald Observatory, Nike, Sony, Marvel, Mars, Facebook
Programs
Artist working with/at MoHA have gone onto programs at Yale, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, RISD, among others
Program Spotlight: Welcome to my Homepage
Welcome to my Homepage is an international online residency program that offers artists financial and technical support to explore the internet as a site for creative production. Welcome to my Homepage was founded in 2014 and has since hosted over 65 artists from across the World Wide Web. Below is a selection of recognition from Homepage artists.
| Year | Artist/Program | Recognition |
|---|---|---|
| 2021, 2022 | Rachel Stuckey (Director of Digital Arts, MoHA) | Presenter, Computer Art Study Days, Smithsonian Archives of American Art |
| 2021 | Sam Lavigne, resident | Project Zoom Escaper received a great deal of attention from a range of publications like The Guardian, The Verge, Vice, The Daily Show, and CNN. |
| 2021 | Andie Flores, resident | Project Anti-Tourism Manifesto was listed as a Best of 2021 by Glasstire |
MoHA Programs
| Program | Program Category | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CATS+ | Digital Arts | The Collaborative Art + Technology Situation (CATS+) is a program for artists interested in expanding their work in digital and new media. The CATS+ Residency Program is a paid opportunity that brings cohorts of artists and tech wizards together to learn and collaborate on new work. CATS+ promotes troubleshooting, curiosity, and critical thinking around emerging and ubiquitous technologies. We host artist-led workshops, gatherings, mentorships, public showcases, a media art studio, an online wiki to remove the mystery from tech by foregrounding human connection, process, and experimentation. |
| Digital Do-Si-Do | Digital Arts | Digital Do-si-do is an online media exchange presented in partnership with Games Y'all, taking place seasonally in our Discord servers. It is a fun, low-stakes opportunity to make something creative, try new software or digital techniques, and meet friends. The program is currently on hiatus. |
| Fantastic Arcade | Digital Arts | Fantastic Arcade is an annual festival that showcases a curated selection of groundbreaking talks and independent games. It celebrates underrepresented independent game developers and digital artists. |
| Games Y'all | Digital Arts | Games Y’all is a monthly meetup that celebrates, amplifies, and supports the unique and underrepresented within indie games and beyond. |
| Welcome to my Homepage | Digital Arts | Welcome to my Homepage is an international online residency program and non-traditional art venue for the creation and appreciation of new net art. Founded in 2014, Homepage offers artists a low-stakes opportunity to experiment and explore the web as a site for creative production. We have hosted over 100 artists from across the world wide web. |
| Cage Match Project | Exhibition | Cage Match Project (CMP) is an experimental gallery that lives in an industrial caged-trailer. This weathered and rusted container resides in a gravel parking lot in Austin, Texas where it is under constant exposure to the elements and 24-hour public viewership. Its current curator is Aryel René Jackson, an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Cage Match Project was developed in 2015 by Ryan Hawk, a fellow video artist and sculptor. |
| Drive-In | Exhibition | The MoHA Drive-In is a program for artists or event organizers to host screenings, performances, and community gatherings at the pop-up outdoor theater in MoHA’s parking lot. |
| Holiday Show | Exhibition | The MoHA Holiday Show is an annual celebration of community and performance! This beloved tradition is a fun, campy, and welcoming event for joy among our community and their chosen families. |
| Station to Stations | Exhibition | Station to Stations is an art gallery housed within the destination sign of a former San Antonio city bus named Peanut. As the bus travels from place to place, or station to stations, the destination sign features a rotating exhibit of text-based artwork from around the globe. |
| The Mall | Exhibition | The Mall is a small art gallery outside of MoHA that helps artists make a living, with a particular interest in uplifting women artists, queer artists, and artists of color whose voices are more often marginalized, and to create an exciting and beautiful platform and context for their work. |
| Unlisted Projects | Residency | Unlisted Projects is an arts and culture residency program based in Austin, TX, that supports local, national, and international artists in their practice and in community. |
