Rasmuson Foundation honors eight UAA alumni with artist awards

The Rasmuson Foundation announced the 2025 recipients of the annual Individual Artist Awards . Fifty artists, including eight UAA alumni, will receive project awards of $10,000. Project awards are designed to support short-term projects that contribute to an artist's development and practice. Since 2003, the program has invested more than $6.5 million in supporting the career development of Alaska artists.

Congratulations to all the award recipients, including the following members of the UAA family:

Martha Amore
M.F.A. Creative Writing and Literary Arts '09
Anchorage, literary arts/scriptworks

Amore will write her second collection of short stories, "End of the Roaders," about a fictional muralist and Irish soldier who fled "the Troubles" and immigrated to Alaska in the early 1980s. Amore plans to travel to Ireland to research IRA murals and history.

Shane Castle
M.F.A. Creative Writing and Literary Arts '04
Anchorage, literary arts/scriptworks

Castle will write a multi-genre book to explore the complex emotional terrain of his own adoption, weaving together short-form fiction, essays, voicemails and court records detailing a crime that haunted his biological family years after he was given up for adoption.

Feng-Yao Chang
B.B.A. Marketing '24
Anchorage, multidiscipline

Chang will create a multimedia project to illuminate the lives of marginalized people through pairings of images and ambient soundscapes of spaces inhabited by Anchorage's homeless residents. She will present her work in an exhibit, a book with QR codes and digital video.

Sarah Nunes
B.A. Languages '23
Anchorage, dance/choreography

Nunes is a dance member, board member and coordinator at Unity Dance Collective, an all-ages Latin Dance group. They hope to create a welcoming space where dancers of all ages and backgrounds can come together to learn, create and grow by sharing their passion for Latin dance, music and motion.

Andrea L. Hackbarth
M.F.A. Creative Writing and Literary Arts '16
Palmer, literary arts/scriptworks

Hackbarth will complete "Like a Driftwood Shelter," a multi-genre manuscript using poetry, short essay and hybrid visual-literary works to explore the complex relationships between birth, death and motherhood, looking to the natural world and spiritual traditions as guides.

Erin Heist
M.F.A. Creative Writing and Literary Arts '15
Juneau, music/music composition

The Heists is a musical duo made up of Erin and Andrew Heist. They are known for their unique harmonies, bluegrass drive, country emotion and old-time groove, and will professionally record, mix, master and release their first album of original music after decades of supporting the folk music community in Alaska.

Raymond Voley
M.A.T. Teaching '93
Copper Center, media arts

Voley will film a documentary about the role Copper River red salmon plays in the Ahtna region's art, health, history, culture and economy, and will record interviews with primary harvesters, historians, economists, biologists and cultural experts about their perspectives.

Taperrnaq Amber Webb
B.A. Art '13
Aleknagik, folk and traditional arts

Webb will gather beach grass and construct a life-sized basket in the shape of a woman to honor knowledge systems and values of Yup'ik women, celebrating joy and freedom from colonization. She plans to present this work in an exhibit of baskets with other weavers.