The Leeway Foundation, which supports women and trans artists who create art for social change, has announced their newest grantees to receive a $15,000 Leeway Transformation Award. Three out of nine award recipients are long-term West Philadelphia residents: Annie Mok, Debora Kodish, and Ezra Berkley Nepon. The award celebrates their long-term commitment to art, the work they’ve been doing in the community, and their tremendous impact. The Leeway Foundation provided some more information about these wonderful artists and their work:

Annie Mok (Literary Arts and Visual Arts): Annie is a comic book creator who seeks to affirm the lives and experiences of trans women and survivors. Through her fictional and memoir-based comics, she aims to agitate, engage and encourage inquiry. Annie works to inspire personal and artistic confidence by breaking down feelings of isolation within her community. In her art, Annie explores themes of trans women’s identity, long-term effects of sexual abuse and disability stemming from mental illness. Annie creates space and prioritizes artists and readers who identify as trans female, disabled, queer, and/or people of color. 

Debora Kodish (Folk Arts): Debora is a cultural worker and organizer who has been committed to supporting the growth and development of folk arts for over 30 years. A self-described “facilitator, cultivator, clarifier, instigator, and midwife for change,” she creates contexts and settings through which diverse people can imagine and build community. She is the founder of the Philadelphia Folklore Project (PFP), an institution that is characterized by the creative development of folk arts as a tool for justice, power and self-knowledge. Through her 27 years as director of PFP, Debora supported over 350+ folk artists and cultural workers in the development of their own work in folk arts and social change. Debora situates herself in collaborative and collective action and fights for educational equity through her development of FACTS Charter School.

Ezra Berkley Nepon (Performance and Literary Arts): Ezra’s work as an artist and activist comes from their hunger for stories and spaces that allow marginalized people to know they are not alone. Whether using film, theatre, writing, or organizing, Ezra makes art in conversation with their communities, while also intending to keep it accessible to those outside their circles. An active member of the queer, trans, and radical Jewish communities, they make space for people to find each other, see each other, and let their walls down in the rare places where their pieces fit together with healing edges exposed. Ezra has showcased their work from living rooms, salons, synagogues, and anarchist bookstores to cabarets, art auctions, and international festivals. They use “dazzle camouflage,” a technique that uses surrealism, satire, camp, and humor to disarm and charm those who might at first be hostile to their messages. They believe that visibility to each other in a world that tells us we don’t exist or matter is part of our path to healing and building power.