Festival’s Special Focus on the Artists Series

Series’ Second Year – Freedom and Love: A Celebration of Visual and Performing Artists from Cleveland’s LGBT Community

Also, a return of Year One’s program – Sin Fronteras/Beyond Borders: A Celebration of Latino Artists in Cleveland

APPLICATIONS for Latino Emerging Artists and LGBTQ Emerging Artists and for the La Placita Vendors and the LGBTQ Village Community Vendors are below…

The Tremont Arts & Cultural Festival celebrates the artistic & cultural heritage shared by diverse populations & immigrants who settled here & built our community with their lives & cultural contributions. In 2018 we began a special four-year series – Focus on the Artists – designed to showcase minority and under-represented visual & performing artists integral to our neighborhoods’ diverse cultures & immigrant heritage. The Tremont Festival’s focus has always been on diversity; however, this series is about populations of artists. The artwork needs to meet standards of artistic excellence, but there is no specific topic or theme for the artwork. We are focusing on the people creating the art.

Advising & implementing the Freedom & Love and the Sin Fronteras/Beyond Borders programs is a 8-member Advisory Committee composed of members of diverse race, ethnicity, age, economic status, gender identity and sexual orientation

Advisory Committee Bios

In the series’ inaugural year, 2018, our Focus on the Artists/Enfoquando en las Artistas program – Sin Fronteras/Beyond Borders emphasized visual & performing artists from Cleveland’s Latino community.

  • The program featured Artists’ Galleries recognizing the life & art of 4 Latino Established artists & 3 Latino Emerging artists
  • A La Placita marketplace
  • The Festival’s Main Stage pulsed with music & dance of 6 Latino performing arts groups
  • Partnership with leading Latino organizations on Cleveland’s west side, Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center, Hispanic Business  Center, and Young Latinos Network

In 2019, we will welcome the return of Latino established and emerging artists and La Placita vendors. Latinos comprise 11 percent of the population of the city of Cleveland. Ward 14 Cleveland, which includes the southwestern portion of Tremont, Brooklyn Centre and the Clark-Fulton neighborhood, has the highest concentration of Latinos in the city – about 40% Latino with a large Spanish speaking population. Other neighborhoods immediately west and south of downtown, such as Ohio City, Stockyards and Broadway, also have significant Latino populations. Though the vast majority of Latinos in Cleveland are of Puerto Rican descent, there are many nationalities represented including Dominicans, Guatemalans, and a number from Central and South America. Patron surveys reflect around 18% of Festival patrons identify as Latino – around 3,950 patrons in 2018.

Our LGBTQ visual and performing artists series, Freedom and Love, will feature:

  • galleries for LGBT Established and Emerging artists
  • booths for community groups with special outreach/programming to greater Cleveland’s LGBT community (including community partner/sponsor) The LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland
  • We anticipate featuring several LGBT performing artists among our Main Stage performers as well
  • A Gallup Poll in 2015 found that 3.7% of the population of Cleveland self-identified as LGBT – which means approximately 260 Tremont residents, 14,060 city of Cleveland residents, and 74,000 residents in NE Ohio may self-identify as LGBT. Patron surveys of our Festival-goers reflect somewhat over 11% of our patrons identify as LGBT – around 2,700 patrons in 2018.
  • Applications for LGBTQ Emerging Artists and for LGBTQ Village Community Vendors are below:

The same programming format will apply:

  • 2020 –  when African Diaspora – African-American/African/black Caribbean are spotlighted
  • 2021 – when Arab/Middle Eastern artists are spotlighted