Detailed guidelines for each category are available on the Submittable application form accessible below.
To submit your 2021 Bronx Recognizes its Own (BRIO) application, please select the category in which you wish to enter.
Photography - VISUAL ARTS
Adi Talwar is a Bronx based photographer with a background in design, engineering, and art. He is a regular contributor to City Limits and the Norwood News. Adi… more
Playwriting - LITERARY ARTS
Ajene D. Washington is a playwright, filmmaker, director, actor and set designer. He has been the recipient of numerous awards as a playwright, director, and set… more
Documentary Film / Video - Media Arts
Bocafloja (née Aldo Villegas) is an interdisciplinary artist based in the Bronx, NY. Bocafloja’s mediums of creation include filmmaking, music, literature,… more
Poetry - LITERARY ARTS
Ama Codjoe is the author of Blood of the Air (Northwestern University Press, 2020), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. She has been awarded support… more
Fiction - LITERARY ARTS
Amy Gottlieb's debut novel The Beautiful Possible (Harper Perennial) was a finalist for the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and a National… more
Mixed Media (2D) - VISUAL ARTS
Antoinette Legnini (b. 1994) is an artist born and raised in the Bronx. She graduated from Fordham University in 2016 with a B.A. in Visual Arts and Women’s Studies. … more
Acting - PERFORMING ARTS
Athena Colón is a bilingual, native New York actress and teaching artist. Athena has worked as an independent teacher and coach in New York City for 10+ years. She… more
Photography - VISUAL ARTS
Ben Zucker is an American portrait photographer. His photography primarily focuses on the relationship between people and their spaces. Ben was born in Rhode Island… more
Vocal Music Performance - PERFORMING ARTS
Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert has established herself as a fresh and exciting artist with " a voice that is pure, powerful, and appealing, with… more
Painting - VISUAL ARTS
A Bronx native-born in 1985, Chakima Micheau’s works have been heavily influenced by having grown up in 1990’s New York City. There in a five-story walk-up,… more
Non-Fiction - LITERARY ARTS
Cheryl McCourtie received her MFA (Writing, Nonfiction) from Columbia University in 2019. She is at work on a memoir, Dancing the Quadrille, about being raised… more
Poetry - LITERARY ARTS
Christina Olivares is the author of No Map of the Earth Includes Stars (2015), winner of the 2014 Marsh Hawk Press Book Prize, and of the chaplet Interrupt (2015),… more
Poetry - LITERARY ARTS
Born and raised in the Bronx, Crystal Valentine is a nationally and internationally poet. Crystal has traveled across seas performing on platforms in Paris, Brazil,… more
Photography - VISUAL ARTS
David ‘Dee’ Delgado is a Puerto Rican independent photographer based in New York City mainly focused on documentary and photojournalism. The interest of… more
Fiction - LITERARY ARTS
Deborah Kahan Kolb is the author of Escape of Light and Windows and a Looking Glass (Finishing Line Press), a finalist for the New Women’s Voices Chapbook… more
Spoken Word - PERFORMING ARTS
Destiny Padilla is a Nuyorican artist from the Bronx, NY. Padilla is a poet, spoken word artist, and writer. She is the founder of Proud Millennial. Proud Millennial… more
Poetry - LITERARY ARTS
Diego Barcacel Peña is a writer and musician born in the Dominican Republic in 1995 and raised in the Bronx since 1998. Having come to the boogie down at such… more
Photography - VISUAL ARTS
Duane Bailey-Castro is a self-taught photographer and a lifelong Bronx resident, who specializes in urban landscape and travel photography. His main focus is… more
Vocal Music Performance - PERFORMING ARTS
Harold Simmons II (aka Fyütch) is a rapper, singer, music producer, and viral content creator. Fyütch began gaining notoriety in Nashville, TN as the lead singer… more
Instrumental Music Performance - PERFORMING ARTS
Hilliard Greene studied at the University of Northern Iowa, Berklee College of Music and SUNY Empire, and has been teaching private students, classes, and masterclasses… more
Installation Art - VISUAL ARTS
Jordan Corine Cruz is an interdisciplinary, queer artist from the Bronx who primarily works with sculpture, video, and installation. Her work examines and responds… more
Street Art - VISUAL ARTS
Lady K-Fever is an internationally recognized Bronx based Graffiti- Street artist, activist, educator, and curator that specializes in producing unique social engagement… more
Choreography - PERFORMING ARTS
Kayla Hamilton is an artist and educator born and raised in the small of Texarkana, Texas and now reside in Bronx, NY. Kayla earned a BA in Dance from Texas Woman’s… more
Painting - VISUAL ARTS
After graduating from The School of Visual Arts, Keith was a fabricator for artist Ugo Rondinone. He assisted in many projects exhibited all over the world. He has… more
Painting - VISUAL ARTS
Laura studied with Fluxus artist Robert Watts at Douglass College, Rutgers University, where she gained an appreciation for the spontaneous and serendipitous, then did… more
Instrumental Music Performance - Performing Arts
As a founding member of Sybarite5, Louis Levitt was the first double bassist to win the Concert Artist Guild Competition. Since then, he has performed with Sybarite5… more
Vocal Music Performance - PERFORMING ARTS
Lucia della Paolera (born 1988) is an artist working across vocal music, film, performance, translation, and law. She is the Creative Director and Lead Vocalist… more
Mixed Media (2D) - VISUAL ARTS
Maya Ciarrocchi is a Bronx-based interdisciplinary artist working in in mixed-media, video, performance and social practice. In these projects, she uses storytelling… more
Fiction - LITERARY ARTS
Naomi Jackson is the author of a novel, The Star Side of Bird Hill. Star Side was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and longlisted… more
Poetry - LITERARY ARTS
Natalie N. Caro is an interdisciplinary artist, activist, editor, and adjunct lecturer at Lehman College. In 2015, she was nominated for one of the most honored literary… more
Mixed Media (2D) - VISUAL ARTS
Noble Dre*Ali is a multi-disciplined Visual Artist who has resided in The Bronx since the mid-1980s. Being inspired by his older brothers’ interest in drawing and… more
Spoken Word - PERFORMING ARTS
Rabih Ahmed is a Ghanaian-American Muslim poet and performer from The Bronx. Her poetry is grounded within the oral traditions and histories of the African diaspora,… more
Painting - VISUAL ARTS
Rebecca Allan is a Bronx-based visual artist whose studio overlooks the confluence of the Hudson and Harlem Rivers. Exhibiting in the United States and abroad for… more
Fiction - LITERARY ARTS
Rosette M. Evans started writing after retiring from a rewarding forty-two-year career as a nurse. She has found support and guidance in the Bronx Council of the… more
Photography - VISUAL ARTS
Roy Baizan is a Chicanx documentary photographer and arts educator from the Bronx whose work focuses on music, community, and family. Shortly after graduating from… more
Playwriting - LITERARY ARTS
Shara Feit is a writer, performer, and dramaturg who makes sad/funny work about messy, virtuosic women+ of all ages. Shara’s plays have been developed by Northwestern… more
Painting - VISUAL ARTS
Shelley Haven, an LES-born, Bronx-based visual artist, creates nature-inspired artworks investigating the beauty and power, the fragility and vulnerability of our… more
Digital Arts - MEDIA ARTS
Juan Carlos Ortiz, Jr., known as "SkittLeZ Ortiz," is a Queer Latinx Singer, Actor, Editor, and Content Creator from the Bronx, New York. SkittLeZ has spent the… more
Instrumental Music Performance - Performing Arts
Cellist Sophie Shao is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a major prizewinner at the 2001 Rostropovich Competition, and a laureate of the XII Tchaikovsky Competition… more
Mixed Media (3D) - VISUAL ARTS
Tucker is a conceptual artist and creative writer. Their work uses art as a mode of cultural activism exploring societal events and social constructions around race,… more
Documentary Film / Video - Media Arts
Ursula Liang is a journalist who has told stories in a wide range of media. She has worked on staff for The New York Times Op-Docs, T: The New York Times Style Magazine,… more
Playwriting - LITERARY ARTS
Wayne Paul Mattingly lives in Bronx, NYC, and has been involved in theatre for decades. Since focusing on playwriting in 2005, his plays have won multiple awards,… more
Installation Art - VISUAL ARTS
Woojin’s work investigates the malleability of an artist’s studio practice under certain conditions. She has developed her artist practice while working as an Art… more
Illustration - VISUAL ARTS
Yesenia Moises is an Afro-Latina woman born and raised in The Highbridge Neighborhood of the Bronx. She is a multidisciplinary artist with specializations in children's… more
A pioneering advocate for cultural equity, the Bronx Council on the Arts nurtures the development of a diverse array of artists and arts organizations and builds strong cultural connections in and beyond The Bronx.
Stay informed by subscribing.
