Since November 2018, the Microgrants program distributes thousands of dollars monthly to support YoungArts winners with expenses related to professional or artistic development, including travel expenses to a residency, registration fees for a conference or class, the purchase of equipment, studio rental fees, and more. Since 2020, we have also offered emergency Microgrants to any artist experiencing loss of income.
Whether you were a YoungArts winner in 1981 or 2024, both creative and emergency microgrants are open to award winners who have registered and completed a profile on YoungArts Post. Learn more about Microgrants here.
Read on to meet several Microgrant recipients and learn about their projects.
Christian Lee (2022 Photography)
Christian Lee is a 43rd Annual Telly Award winning commercial and documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work has been published in outlets such as TIME Magazine, The New York Times, Vogue Italia, the Los Angeles Times and the World Photography Organization. Lee’s work explores themes of cultural assimilation, domesticity and intergenerational trauma within immigrant communities.
Lee is also a Sundance Ignite fellow and used microgrant funding towards festival fees for his film, To Cry On Moonlit Nights. Lee’s work is featured in his upcoming solo exhibition at UC Irvine, which includes photographs featured in TIME Magazine.
“I was super excited, first of all, but also really honored and really humbled [by] the fact that YoungArts was willing to invest not only in my work, but in my future as well.” – Christian Lee
Emily Sun Li (2013, 2014 Writing)
Emily Sun Li is a Chinese-American writer pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature and MFA in Writing for Children at Simmons University. She received a microgrant to support her attendance at Kindling Words East, the leading professional retreat for the children’s book world.
Li’s debut children’s picture book, MR. CHOW’S NIGHT MARKET, will be published in spring 2026 by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House. In MR. CHOW’S NIGHT MARKET, illustrated by Yu-Ting Cheng, “an old man who becomes very grumpy when he has to get up early to run his supermarket is gifted a little inspiration from his neighbors, help from his grandchildren, and a dash of magic from the store itself, and turns his supermarket into something astounding.”
Dominica Greene (2012 Dance)
Dominica Greene is a movement-based conceptual artist, dancer and facilitator based in Brooklyn, NY. She values dance as “one of the purest forms of expression, utilizing it as an energetic entity capable of affecting real and palpable change.”
Recently, support from the YoungArts microgrant helped fund the presentation of ‘ENUF’ at Triskelion Arts, April 18-20. ‘ENUF’ is an autobiographical solo that finds inspiration in feminist prose by Ntozake Shange and Alice Walker and delves into the essence of what resides within us and how our ancestors play a crucial role in bringing forth those elements.