Revista Balam (Honduras/Argentina) will use the Grant to produce Balam No. 12: Sirenas del Caribe [Mermaids of the Caribbean]. This issue of the magazine will focus on the concept of Neo-Carib, a contemporary Caribbean identity that after recognizing the traces of colonialism, slavery, and diaspora, embraces fluidity, hybridity, and the future. Proud of its indigenous and African heritage, this issue will highlight the experiences and poetics of the Afro-Caribbean queer community by exploring how Caribbean bodies conceive their own visual languages as political territories, affective archives, erotic drives, ancestral memories, and spaces for radical creation in the face of violence, structural racism, and cultural hegemony. The project will feature the international participation of photographers, collectives, archives, artists, writers, activists, and curators from the Caribbean and their allies, capable of imagining the scenarios of tomorrow.

Founded in 2015 by Luis Juárez (b. 1991, Honduras), Balam is an independent contemporary photography magazine that works through open calls to democratize access and amplify diverse, critical, and committed voices. Balam has published more than ten editions, seven of them in print, bringing together artists, photographers, and projects from different latitudes under a Latin American perspective. It promotes dialogues that cross aesthetics, politics, and identity and expands the scope of the publication to position it as a platform for curatorial research.