State Arts Agency awards multi-year arts grants to 3 artists
Published on Thursday, January 15, 2026
Providence, R.I. – R.I. State Council on the Arts has awarded $6,000 per year for three years to three artists. They are, filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak, Providence, and musician Laura Cetilia, Providence, and printmaker and graphic artist Lois Harada, North Providence.
Now entering its fourth year, recipients of this grant receive support to work toward large, specific, self-identified goals in their art practice. This program includes a cohort community for meetings and learning opportunities that are focused on grantees’ needs. The program requires that participants submit a report once per year and remain Rhode Island residents for the full granting period of three years.
“As this relatively new program embarks on its fourth year, these three-year grants are an example of our continuous work to support artists as creators, community connectors, and small businesses,” said RISCA’s Executive Director Todd Trebour.
“We are proud to be giving artists, Ashish, Laura and Lois, a rare opportunity to intensely focus on their artmaking and help them support work that contributes to R.I.’s vibrant arts and culture community and our overall economy.”
About the artists
Ashish Avikunthak, Providence, is an Indian avant-garde filmmaker, film theorist, archaeologist and cultural anthropologist. His films have been the subject of more than a dozen retrospectives, 18 solo shows, and they have been shown worldwide in major film festivals, group shows and museums. He has been named Future Greats 2014 by Art Review. He has been published in the Cambridge University Press Journal of Social Archaeology, Journal of Material Culture, Contributions to Indian Sociology and The Indian Economic and Social History Review among other publications. He has a doctorate in cultural anthropology from Stanford University, taught at Yale University, and is a professor of film/media at the University of Rhode Island.
Laura Cetilia, Providence, is at home with in-betweenness, straddling multiple worlds as cellist/composer/educator/artist while working within acoustic/electronic/traditional/experimental sound practices. Her compositions have been described as “unorthodox loveliness” (Boston Globe) and hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” (Sequenza 21). Laura is a winner of the Artzenter Emerging composer. Her recent album “gorgeous nothings” was listed by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Alex Ross (New Yorker) as one of the best releases of 2025. Her works have been performed by San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, TAK Ensemble, Loadbang, Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, a.pe.ri.od.ic, LCollective, Taceti Ensemble among others. After receiving her D.M.A. in Music Composition in 2024 from Cornell, Cetilia became certified as a Deep Listening® Practitioner from the Center for Deep Listening and returned to teaching cello and experimental music practices at Community MusicWorks, an organization that provides free instruments and lessons in underserved areas of Providence, RI. She plays with Mem1 (established in 2003 with M. Cetilia, modular synth), Ordinary Affects, LCollective, and the all-female groups Moons, n/ether, and noeplace.
Lois Harada, North Providence, is an artist and printmaker. She studied printmaking at RISD where she received her bachelor’s in fine arts. Harada utilizes text and historic propaganda posters to tell her family’s story of incarceration during the early 1940s. Harada has exhibited artwork throughout the world, and many of her works are included in private collections and are at the RISD museum. She has served on the board of New Urban Arts and recently joined the board of Dirt Palace. In 2022, she started a second term as a city commissioner, and the first as chairperson of the Art in City Life Commission for Providence. She currently is teaching at RISD in printmaking and graphic design.