Today, I was honored to notify our Bader+Simon Empowerment Grant winner and double-joyed to inform a second recipient. We received three times as many applications this year, and the two that rose to the top were within 3/10 of each other, leading us to select a second recipient.

The grant winner is New York-based photographer Kalada Halliday. Halliday will document the senior year of South Bronx high school students, photographing them in academic and non-academic settings, rites of passage, and quieter, subtle moments.

The runner-up grantee is Mo Rodriguez, a Chicago artist who explores beauty, trauma, and healing through manipulated Barbie dolls. By merging flesh and plastic, Rodriguez creates compositions that blur the line between reality and illusion, challenging beauty standards and exploring how they impact society.

We are honored to support these outstanding artists and look forward to showcasing their work at a future Bader+Simon exhibition. We also extend our sincere gratitude to all who applied; the selection process was exceptionally competitive due to the remarkable quality of submissions. Their creativity and vision inspire us, and we wish them all the best in their artistic journeys.

Congratulations Are in Order

The Beauty of Orange