Sondheim Prize Announcement and Comments by Cara Ober with Photos by Stewart Watson
We’re thrilled that the artist/activist collaborative led by Rebecca Nagle and Hannah Brancato has won the 2016 Sondheim Prize. As we can attest in our extensive and overzealous commentary on the exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art and our photos of the exhibit, there were a number of highly successful submissions for this year’s prize and a lot of different ways the jurors could have ruled.
So Many Congratulations to FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, winners of the 2016 Sondheim Prize. May they continue to make Baltimore a better place through healing practices and hands-on collaborative events and installations.
FORCE is an artist and activist collaboration whose mission is to upset the culture of rape and promote a culture of consent. Founded in 2010, FORCE is led by Hannah Brancato (Baltimore, MD) and Rebecca Nagle (Baltimore, MD,) both creative educators, organizers, and activists. Nationally known for producing large-scale public art projects and campaigns, FORCE believes that a more difficult and honest conversation needs to happen in America to face the realities of sexual violence, and to envision a world where sex is empowering and pleasurable rather than coercive and violent.
FORCE’s work has been covered by dozens of news outlets, including The New York Times, Fast Company, CNN, MSNBC and NPR. Brancato teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD), where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Community Art in 2011. Nagle is the founding director of the No Boundaries Coalition, a resident-led organization bringing neighborhoods together across race and class lines, and has exhibited internationally at the New Museum (New York, NY), Ssamzi Art Warehouse (Seoul, Korea), Eyebeam (Brooklyn, NY), Dixon Place (New York, NY), La Mama Experimental Theatre Club (New York, NY) and the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD).
For analysis and critical response to the 2016 Sondheim Prize and its finalists, check out The Hustle Lottery by Bret McCabe and Cara Ober published July 8 and Photos of the Sondheim Finalist Exhibit from June 22.
