We at SPACE are psyched to announce the grantees of our 2026 Sonic Visions Fund! These five boundary-pushing and imaginative projects have been awarded $3,000 grants through the fifth season of our grant-making endeavor for Maine musicians. The commissioned projects bring together multimedia performance, collaborative art-making, and communal experiences with unmistakable visionary spirit.
These projects were chosen by a jury from 50+ submissions collected over the summer of 2026.
We are deeply grateful to the Onion Foundation for their continued support of this unique grant program and SPACE’s efforts to create funding opportunities for musicians across the state of Maine.
We hope to grow the size of the individual awards and the total amount of musician grantees in future years and are actively seeking funding support to do so. Individuals, foundations, or organizations interested in contributing to these ongoing efforts should contact director@space538.org.
2026 Sonic Visions Fund grantees
Brian Shankar Adler
Dance of the Cephalopod: Installation/Sound Bath
An interactive, sculptural sound bath connecting humanity and nature — 96 playable polyethylene wind chimes amidst sonified scientific data from the Shaw Institute’s research on ocean plastic pollutants.
Sascha Drice
Black Seed
An evolving Afrofuturist recording project and touring multimedia performance that stitches past and present across genre and cultures, creating dialogues of sounds between memory and future.
Bri Bowman with Ryan Marshall and Michael Higgins
Return to Water
Participatory listening sessions at three Maine springs lead into an immersive, multi-sensory installation blending soundscape, film, projections, and herbal preparations at Washington Baths.
Colby Nathan
15th Annual Experimental Santa
A four-night run and full-scale stage production of Maine’s exceedingly ambitious outsider holiday revue featuring noise-inspired sound exploration, abstract comedy, and a cast of creative freaks at The Apohadion Theater.
Kafari
Bonescapes and Flow States
A statewide tour of rhythm bones workshops, with technical instruction, collaborative flow states, and historical context on blackface minstrelsy, with guest performers.
