A Transformative Grant and New Look for The Industry
When we formed the Artistic Director Cooperative last summer, we knew this new leadership model would change the organization in big and unexpected ways. And now we are thrilled to share some major news about how this vision is resonating.
We are honored to announce that The Industry has received a three-year grant, totaling $1,000,000, from the Mellon Foundation “to support visionary artists in their desire to combine a long-enduring art form and experimental technologies into contemporary narratives on behalf of a broadly diverse public.”
“This extraordinary gift by the Mellon Foundation offers all of us at The Industry such profound encouragement as we embark on a model of shared artistic leadership. We are grateful to Susan Feder for her many years of stewardship and advocacy, and we are honored to have the Mellon’s support at the start of our Artistic Director Cooperative.”
— Yuval Sharon, Founder and co-Artistic Director
For us, this means intentionally growing the organization in an experimental, bold, and artist-driven way. We will use funds to support our Artistic Director Cooperative and a new Production Development Fund to create more regular and frequent programming. With this transformative grant, we will increase the number of artists and ideas we are able to support. In doing so, we hope to expand the voices, future, and context for opera.
Earlier this year, we sat down with our Artistic Director Cooperative to talk about their upcoming projects with The Industry and the ideas that inspire their work. Get to know a bit more about each of our co-directors in this video:
Our new brand identity
We engaged the phenomenal team at Polymode to help create a new brand identity that would embody our mission and company, and we’re so thrilled with the results!
“The Industry Identity System and Wordmark are composed of dynamic forms to reflect the varied states of the experimental opera’s programming and the multiplicity of its Artistic Director Cooperative. Visually the identity creates a sense of the loop, echo, or projective notion of sound. The variable typeface WHOA and linear forms consistently play with shifts in weight, depth, and color that also grounds the idea of taking up space in the geographic sprawl and cultural context of Los Angeles.”
— Silas Munro, Partner, Polymode
About Polymode
Polymode is a studio that leads the edge of contemporary graphic design through poetic research, learning experiences, and making cool shit for clients in the cultural sphere, innovative businesses, and community-based organizations.
Our specialties include books, curation, education, exhibition, identities, interfaces, publications, visual design, websites, workshops, and writing. We operate between the complexity of designed systems and lived experience—our core principles of visual expression, media adaptability, and typographic function.
As a bi-coastal, LGBTQ+, and Minority-owned studio with offices in Inglewood, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina, Polymode ignites change to create social and sustainable impact. We operate with the ethos of Studio as family.
Our clients include Art Gallery of Ontario, City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, David Kordansky Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Mark Bradford at the Venice Biennale, MOCA, MoMA, The New Museum, Phaidon Press, Phoenix House, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Orange County Museum of Art, and Studio Museum in Harlem.
Check out some of Polymode’s other fantastic work at https://www.polymode.studio/studio/.