U.S. Mexico Fund for Culture Backs 5 Southland Projects

Five Southern California arts projects are among 52 programs receiving a total of $1.1 million in grants from the U.S. Mexico Fund for Culture.

Among those receiving grants are Los Angeles artist Xavier Francisco Siqueiros, who will receive $23,690 for the “LAX-Benito Juarez Brief Case,” a graphic arts workshop for four local Latino artists and another four artists from Mexico; Riverside’s California Museum of Photography, which will receive $25,000 to mount “Documentary Fictions/Digital Truths,” an exhibition of new photographs by Mexican artist Pedro Meyer, and San Diego’s Centro Cultural de La Raza, which will get $23,560 to lead a program for various institutions addressing the challenges facing community-based museums.

Other local grantees include Santa Barbara writer Merri Helen Ponce, who will get $15,000 to write a preliminary biography of various Mexican woman writers, and Los Angeles artists Ruben Ortiz Torres and Jesse Lerner, who were granted $25,000 for “Fronterilandia/Frontierland,” a documentary on cultural changes north and south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The 2-year-old Fund is co-sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fundacion Cultural Bancomer and the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Awards were made in six categories: performing arts, museums and visual arts, libraries, literature, publishing, media arts and cultural studies.

Information: (Mexico) 211-00-42, Ext. 3473.