WHAT:
On Thursday, February 27, 2025, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and City Commissioners will join art and nonprofit partners from around Central Florida to celebrate the selection of local artists who are bringing a unique social impact initiative to life through a partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The City of Orlando was awarded a $1 million grant through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, which brings together mayors, residents, and artists to develop innovative, temporary public art projects that address important civic issues in their communities.
The city’s project - Art Pollination: Building Food Justice through Creativity – will leverage temporary art installations as a vehicle to raise awareness and promote solutions around the shared challenge of food insecurity and hunger in our community. Additionally, the artists participating in Art Pollination will lend their creative skills to create art installations that bring attention to the work our nonprofit partners are doing to help solve hunger-related challenges in Orlando. About 1 in 7 people in Central Florida are food insecure, which means they don't have reliable access to healthy food. This includes more than 500,000 people who don't know where their next meal will come from.
"Everything we've built together and aspire to be as a City is possible because of partnership, with nonprofit and arts communities coming together in a bold, creative way to help those experiencing hunger and food insecurity," said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer.
Over the next year, artists from Central Florida will create new work for display and participation along the Orlando Urban Trail, at community centers, at food event sites, in project wayfinding, in urban billboards, and in exhibitions at Downtown Arts District’s CityArts venue and at the City Hall Terrace Gallery in Downtown Orlando. Artists include:
- Shree Chauhan
- Alexis Collum
- Roxana Cousino
- Kellie Delaney
- Tasanee Durrett
- Harrison Foreman
- Nathania Guerra
- Peterson Guerrier
- Ha'ani Hogan
- N. Carlos Jefferson
- Christopher Jones
- Marquis Lee
- Delia Miller
- Luca Molnar
- Sinuhe Vega Negrin
- Justin Skipper
- Mado Smith
- PJ Svejda
- Gina Tyquiengco
- Shawn Welcome
The announcement event also features the project’s nonprofit partners, notably a live cooking demonstration from HEBNI Nutrition, a nonprofit that educates high-risk, culturally diverse populations about nutrition strategies to prevent diet-related diseases and connects underserved residents with fresh fruits and vegetables.
For more information, including artists bios visit:orlando.gov/ArtPollination.
WHEN:
Thursday, February 27, 2025
9 a.m.
WHERE:
City Arts Orlando
39 South Magnolia Avenue
WHO:
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer
City of Orlando Commissioners
Shawn Welcome, City Poet Laureate
HEBNI Nutrition Consultants, Inc.
MEDIA INFORMATION:
Media are asked to RSVP by contacting Andrea Otero, City of Orlando Public Information Manager, at 321-689-7085 or Andrea.Otero@orlando.gov.
About the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge:
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge brings together mayors, residents, and artists to develop temporary public art projects that address important civic issues in their communities. In 2022, Bloomberg Philanthropies invited mayors of U.S. cities with 30,000 residents or more to apply for up to $1 million in funding to create temporary public art projects that address important civic issues and demonstrate an ability to generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity and urban identity, and strengthen local economies. More than 150 cities from 40 U.S. states applied. Bloomberg Philanthropies selected eight winning cities, including Baltimore, to develop projects focused on challenges related to climate change, equity, food insecurity, gun violence, homelessness, public health, and revitalization. Since launching in 2014, the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge has spurred more than $100 million in economic benefits for participating cities and action across a range of civic issues.
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