The Idea Fund has announced the selection of 13 projects by Houston-based artists for its 2026 round of grants.
The Idea Fund is a re-granting program funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and co-administered by Houston nonprofits DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses. The fund reports that since beginning in 2009, the program has supported a total of 169 Greater Houston area visual art projects by 530 artists and collectives, with grants totaling more than $900,000.
Each project selected for 2026 grants will receive either $2,500 or $5,000. According to a press release, the projects, selected by a multidisciplinary jury panel of three experts, represent The Idea Fund’s mission to “expand our understanding of how art exists in the world or exemplify new ways of working in, for, and with community,” through support of innovative and experimental visual arts projects presented to the public.
Round 19 individual grant recipients are Saran Alderson, Preston Gaines, Jessica Carolina González, Jennifer Marion, Tobe Mokolo, Quentin Pace, Joe Robles, and aisha tida. Artist groups are Jesse Spiehler and Logan Tuttle; Mitchell Collins and Sofia Silueta of Friends Gallery; Salima Bowaniya, Sol Diaz-Peña, and Ryan Hollaway; and Chris Wicker, Anna Taylor, and Trent Teinert.
The grantees were selected from among 115 applicants by Round 19 jurors Sebastien Boncy, a Houston photographer, educator, and 2025 Idea Fund grant recipient; Lani Asunción, an interdisciplinary multimedia artist and independent curator in Boston, Massachusetts; and Alexis Wilkinson, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson in Arizona.
In the press announcement, Ms. Wilkinson said, “The volume of dynamic and competitive proposals submitted made the selection process a challenge, and speaks to the wealth of creative forces in Houston.”
Mr. Boncy spoke to the effect of the Idea Fund awards on Houston’s arts culture: “When we say Houston with love in our voice, we certainly do not mean the tangle of highways governed by regressive politics. We are talking about the idiosyncratic, accomplished, uncompromising panoply of weirdoes building essential culture within its concrete folds. For years, The Idea Fund has been about encouraging suspect behavior by giving these good folks seed money for their cathedrals.”
A public awards reception for grantees will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3, at Aurora Picture Show. The artists will present their project proposals at the event.
Learn more about the funded projects below, via descriptions provided by The Idea Fund.
Saran Alderson
Rosin & Talc Community Printmaking Project
Rosin & Talc Community Printmaking Project seeks to develop a flexible, community-centered printmaking space. The project will establish a collapsible, hybrid printmaking studio that can be easily set up and taken down to accommodate shared use of space. The Idea Fund support will assist with equipment purchases, modular infrastructure, and a series of printmaking workshops. Centered on slow, analog processes, the project fosters conversation, collaboration, and collective “plotting.”
Salima Bowaniya & Sol Diaz-Peña with support from Ryan Hollaway
Pesadito
Pesadito is a multiformat project that unites a group of Houston-based artists navigating the social and political heaviness of our time with wit, sincerity, and action. Moving between comedy and critique, these artists will utilize their distinct perspectives to rebuild meaning and connection across physical and digital landscapes. The Idea Fund will support the exhibition component of Pesadito, which will be featured as a Fotofest Biennial 2026 Participating Space.
Mitchell Collins & Sofia Silueta
It’s a City Not a Choice
It’s a City Not a Choice is a feature-length film about young, working-class queer artists living their lives and trying to survive in Houston. The film will present an offbeat and underground look at the world of art in Houston through a hybrid documentary/fiction lens as a way of holding up a mirror to the physical realities that inform the creative choices of the many artists who live and work in our city.
Friends Gallery
A QTBIPOC community art space
Friends Gallery is a volunteer-run trans/queer/BIPOC-led collective stewarding a community art space in the Magnolia Park neighborhood of Houston. With support from The Idea Fund, Friends Gallery will expand its capacity by providing equipment and training for local artists; building an artist-curated reading library, tool school, and tool bank; and strengthening infrastructure for community events.
Preston Gaines
IN Nature: A Living Tapestry
IN Nature: A Living Tapestry is a site-specific public art installation that transforms a section of Japhet Creek into a contemplative landscape composed of laser-cut steel floral sculptures and native plantings. The project examines the creek’s environmental history, its role in the Fifth Ward, and the lived experiences of nearby residents who have watched the waterway be alternately neglected and cherished over generations. Proposed programs include a walking tour and native planting zone, live storytelling by community members, and hands-on activities centered on ecology and memory.
Jessica Carolina González
Superneighborhood 27: The “Gulfton Ghetto”
Jessica Carolina González will examine the histories embedded in apartment complexes built during the 1970s oil boom, globally connected businesses catering to Central American immigrants, and communal squares through cameraless photography and on-site performance.
Jennifer Marion
A to B. B to A. Repeat.
Jennifer Marion seeks to transform a rental truck into a traveling exhibition space, projecting video documenting her biweekly custody exchange commute between Houston and Beaumont. The project will feature projections on the truck’s side at dusk in unexpected locations such as town squares, rest stops, and parking lots. As both subject and object are moving, the project highlights the transition between places while displaying images of movement itself. Inviting every viewer to become a passenger in someone else’s commute.
Tobe Mokolo
Amerikan Boy
Amerikan Boy is a short psychological thriller inspired by Tobe Mokolo’s lived experience emigrating from Nigeria to the United States in 2004. Set in Houston, the film explores identity, masculinity, and the search for belonging through the perspective of a young Nigerian immigrant navigating the tension between cultural duty and personal desire. Produced in collaboration with a fully Houston-based production crew of cinematographers, artists, and post-production creatives, Amerikan Boy is both deeply personal and community-driven. The Idea Fund support will be used to complete postproduction, execute a targeted marketing campaign, and support screenings and distribution, ensuring the film reaches audiences in Houston and beyond.
Quentin Pace
Artist Archive Development Workshop
As an artist and archivist Quentin Pace recognizes the long-term importance of artists being able to properly archive their work, practice, and art career. Through The Idea Fund, Mr. Pace will create a series of workshops to share basic archival fundamentals with artists to better organize and document the history of their work.
Joe Robles
Still Growing Up Here
Still Growing Up Here is a photo narrative project of Joe Robles’ hometown, Pasadena, Texas, specifically, the northside. With support from The Idea Fund, Mr. Robles will create a photo book documenting life in Pasadena, a city primarily acknowledged for its pollution and the oil and gas industry. The photo series and book will redirect the eyes of others to the beauty and humanity he has found in this area he calls home.
Jesse Spiehler & Logan Tuttle
Queer Estuaries
Queer organizers Jesse Spiehler and Logan Tuttle will produce a collaborative multidisciplinary project that will engage Houston’s queer community and serve as a reminder that in an anti-LGBT state, queer people will always belong in the South. The project will explore Houston’s diverse LGBTQIA+ intersections through open-call interviews with intergenerational queer organizers to create a community patchwork banner with a hidden message, which will be developed by event attendees over the course of the project. The conclusion will be the completed banner and published zine of collected work by community members.
aisha tida
Diaspora Dumplings: Pantry Tours x Traveling Test Kitchen
Diaspora Dumplings: Pantry Tours x Traveling Test Kitchen is a social practice art project that travels to participants’ home kitchens. Through conversation, pantry tours, and collaborative dumpling-making, the project uses food as both material and metaphor to explore identity, migration, memory, and belonging. The resulting stories, images, and recipes are published as a growing, publicly accessible online archive that reframes everyday people as culture-bearers and ordinary items as artifacts worthy of study and preservation.
Chris Wicker, Anna Taylor & Trent Teinert
YARD
Chris Wicker, Anna Taylor, and Trent Teinert come together through The Idea Fund to develop YARD, an exhibition series in three Houston front yards. The series will feature curated artists, displaying a variety of mediums along with an accompanying publication and series of video interviews with each artist. YARD highlights innovative exhibition practices and thinking outside of traditional gallery spaces.