Sonia Farmer granted a Catapult Stay Home Artist Residency

October 5-November 27, 2020

Sonia has been awarded a Catapult Stay Home Artist Residency to begin on 5th of October. The Stay Home Artist Residency is one of six opportunities to support Caribbean creatives offered by the Catapult | A Caribbean Arts Grant initiative, a COVID-19 relief programme made possible through a collaboration between Kingston Creative, Fresh Milk, and the American Friends of Jamaica. Targeting participants living and working across the Caribbean, these funded opportunities aim to bring collective visibility to over 1,000 Caribbean-based artists and enable their growth, especially those exploring broad critical themes of culture, human rights, gender, LGBTQIA+, and Climate Justice from Caribbean perspectives. Beginning on October 5 and running for two months, Sonia will use her residency to begin several artist’s book projects that explore our transient existence in an age of climate injustice, engaging with repurposed texts. Check in on her progress here.

“Don’t Look” shortlisted for the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize

Sonia’s poem, “Don’t Look”, was selected as one of 54 shortlisted poems for the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, a contest that challenges poets from around the world to submit a poem of 40 lines or fewer for a winning prize of $20,000 CAD. “Don’t Look” begins with a moral dilemma that triggers a confrontation with unspoken shame. Find out more and hear Sonia read the poem here. The poem will appear alongside the other shortlisted poems in the forthcoming Montreal Prize Anthology.

A True & Exact History a Semi-Finalist for the 2020 MCBA Prize

Sonia’s artist’s book, A True & Exact History, has been selected as a semi-finalist in The 2020 MCBA Prize. Presented by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, The MCBA Prize is a biennial international artist’s book award that “promotes excellence in new work from across the expressive spectrum in book art.” Since the 2020 competition coincides with the 35th anniversary of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the event has been expanded from its usual format of honoring one winner and four finalists to include an exhibition of book works from 20-30 semi-finalists, juried and curated by Betty Bright. Due to the pandemic, the exhibition and its programming has moved entirely online. See Sonia’s entry, A True & Exact History, in the exhibition as a semi-finalist here.