Vermont Artist Simon Yiga Receives $10,000 Creation Grant for Beyond the Mask
Vermont-based artist and cultural practitioner Simon Yiga has been awarded a $10,000 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council to support the execution of Beyond the Mask, an interdisciplinary artistic project exploring identity, resilience, culture, and the human stories that often remain hidden beneath the surface.
The award represents an important milestone in Yiga’s continuing artistic work and provides critical creative support for bringing Beyond the Mask from concept to production.
The Vermont Arts Council’s Creation Grants support Vermont artists and artist groups in the development of new creative work. For the FY2027 cycle, the Council introduced a $10,000 award category specifically for performing-arts groups working in dance, theater, and multidisciplinary productions—recognizing the higher production costs and collaborative nature of these forms.
About Simon Yiga
Simon Yiga is a Vermont-based artist whose work sits at the intersection of the arts, culture, storytelling, and community engagement. His artistic practice is informed by a strong connection to African cultural traditions and by a commitment to using creative expression as a medium for dialogue, reflection, and social connection.
As an artist and cultural practitioner, Yiga has worked across artistic and community contexts, bringing together performance, storytelling, music, cultural expression, and lived experience. His work reflects an interest in the ways people understand themselves and one another through the stories they tell—and those they often struggle to tell.
His artistic perspective is also shaped by experience across cultures. Working between African and American cultural contexts has given him a distinctive lens through which to explore questions of identity, migration, belonging, memory, resilience, and human connection.
It is within this broader artistic practice that Beyond the Mask emerges.
Beyond the Mask: Telling the Stories Beneath the Surface
Beyond the Mask is a multidisciplinary live storytelling project designed to explore the experiences, identities, struggles, and aspirations that exist beneath the outward identities people present to the world.
The project recognizes that every person carries stories that may not be immediately visible. Behind professional identities, cultural identities, social expectations, personal achievements, and public appearances are experiences that shape who people become.
Through live storytelling and artistic performance, Beyond the Mask seeks to create a space where those deeper stories can be expressed, witnessed, and understood.
The project brings together artistic storytelling and performance to examine themes of vulnerability, identity, resilience, culture, and the human search for meaning and connection. Rather than simply presenting stories to an audience, the project seeks to create an encounter between storyteller and listener—encouraging audiences to look beyond assumptions and engage with the person behind the visible “mask.”
From Concept to Creation
The $10,000 Creation Grant will provide Yiga and the Beyond the Mask creative team with resources needed to advance the project into its production phase.
Support will contribute toward the creative process, including artistic development, rehearsals, production, and other elements necessary to bring the multidisciplinary work to audiences.
For an independent artist and creative team, funding of this nature can make a significant difference. It creates the space necessary for artists to devote meaningful time to the creative process while also supporting the practical requirements of developing and presenting a professional production.
The project is scheduled as part of Yiga’s broader 2026–2027 artistic work, with the Beyond the Mask project timeline running from September 15, 2026 through January 31, 2027.
Art as a Bridge Between Experiences
At its heart, Beyond the Mask is about seeing people more completely.
The project reflects a fundamental principle of Yiga’s artistic practice: that culture and storytelling can create opportunities for people to encounter experiences beyond their own and to develop a deeper understanding of one another.
By placing personal stories within a creative and performance context, Beyond the Mask seeks to transform individual experiences into shared moments of reflection.
For audiences, the project offers an opportunity not simply to watch a performance, but to listen—to encounter stories that challenge assumptions, reveal common humanity, and encourage conversations about the experiences that shape individuals and communities.
A Significant Milestone
The Vermont Arts Council grant represents more than financial support. It is recognition of the artistic potential of Beyond the Mask and of Yiga’s continuing contribution as a Vermont-based artist.
The Council describes its Creation Grants as supporting the creation of new work by Vermont artists, with applications reviewed competitively by independent panels of practicing artists and arts professionals.
For Yiga, the award provides an opportunity to deepen his creative practice while bringing an ambitious multidisciplinary project to life.
Beyond the Mask now moves into its next chapter: from an artistic vision into a fully developed work capable of engaging audiences through story, performance, culture, and human experience.
As the project unfolds, its central invitation remains simple:
Look beyond the mask. Listen to the story. Meet the person beneath it.
