Sonic Visions: Making SPACE for Maine Musicians

The Portland nonprofit SPACE is a unique mixture of many things: music, visual arts, advocacy, community, theater, and, perhaps most of all, innovation. One could attend an activist poetry reading at SPACE’s main stage one day, explore a cutting-edge arts exhibition the next, and, later, dance along to a band’s experimental music.

“SPACE is an alternative art space first and foremost,” says Peter McLaughlin, Music and Community Programmer. “It’s here to foster the arts and support the artists themselves.”

But, according to McLaughlin, SPACE is more than a space. It’s a Maine staple that plays a central role in building and nurturing the spirited, connective arts scene throughout the state. A big part of that effort? Sonic Visions, one of SPACE’s regranting programs, which awards funds to artists pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in music.

Supporting the Visionaries

For Maine-based artists, SPACE has pretty much everything: a stage, equipment, studio space, a print shop, community connections, and a social-justice-oriented ethos.

For art lovers, the nonprofit also has much to offer, including curated exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, and more. In 2014, the organization launched the Kindling Fund, a regranting program for visual arts, funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation. Soon thereafter, the SPACE team became interested in expanding this kind of programming to musicians.

“There are more grant opportunities out there for visual artists than there are for musicians. And those that do exist for musicians tend to be limited to classical music,” says McLaughlin. “We saw a void of grant opportunities for Maine musicians whose work is outside of those areas.”

And thus, the Sonic Visions program was born in 2021.

The program awards funding to four to six Maine-based musicians per cycle and requires their projects to have a public component, be it a performance, a screening, a kickoff party, or an installation.

“The applicants really run the gamut — composers, songwriters, experimental musicians, people who are more organizer-oriented, installation artists. Almost every genre has been represented in some way,” says McLaughlin.

Category-Defying, Genre-Bending Productions

Winning applications are determined by a jury of three SPACE staff members. “We’re looking for something that stands out, something that feels different and unique,” says McLaughlin.

In the four cycles of the grantmaking program so far, the most common projects have been truly expansive and creative, typically involving a production like a stage set, video projection, or choreography. Past winners have included:

• Liz Rhaney, a multimedia artist, musician, and DJ whose work is rooted in Afrofuturism

• An Anderson, an experimental rock band who collaborated with puppeteers on a live-scored show

• Beat Traffic, a web series featuring rappers and beatmakers

Winning applicants receive $3,000 in grant funds and support from SPACE staff and access to the nonprofit’s extensive resources. “Some grant winners do research here because we have a pretty significant archive of ephemera, including calendars and posters going back to 2002,” says McLaughlin.

And the 2025 Winners Are …

The 2025 Sonic Visions grantees are as innovative and imaginative as past winners. Selected from a batch of more than 50 impressive applications, these winners create the boundary-pushing music SPACE is hoping to nurture:

• Patrick Carey and Ron Harrity’s Aftersound immerses audience members in a spatial audio installation

• Athena Lynch and Candice Gosta’s CTRL+ALT+SZZL: Frequencies of the Cultureverse celebrates BIPOC creativity through the intersections of sound and movement

• Katherine Hulit and Sarah Moody’s Other Portland documentary offers a comprehensive look at Maine’s underground music scene — from the past to the future

• Iris Marion’s Prayer w/o a God combines minimalist sound with herbs and flowers

• Windier & the Broken Telescope Choir’s Let the Blue Air In mixes a choir production and a “moving picture book”

As McLaughlin notes, the process of selecting these winners is tough: “There are frequently 25 or more projects that we would like to support. Getting to that final five or six is so hard. The applications are brilliant.”

An Evolving Program

Indeed, the applications themselves help the Sonic Visions program evolve over time. “Every cycle, we’re looking at applications that are pushing against what might qualify for a grant,” says McLaughlin. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘Should we fund this? Why wouldn’t we?’”

That flexibility and willingness to adapt are part of what makes the Sonic Vision program — and Maine’s music scene more broadly — so special. The community is driving how the music scene evolves, and Sonic Visions is a central part of that process.

The program helps bolster artists’ careers and makes possible productions that otherwise might not be able to get off the ground. It provides support for musicians from marginalized backgrounds and prioritizes social justice at every step of the grant cycle. At its core, Sonic Visions is “bringing people together,” says McLaughlin. “These projects are inspirational to audiences and other people in Maine’s music scene. The good they’re doing helps snowball further opportunities and helps build a stronger and more vibrant local art scene.”

McLaughlin notes that, while the program has seen incredible success so far, it’s still new in many ways and will undoubtedly continue to shift and grow in the coming years as new artists emerge and musicians continue to imagine new art forms.

One thing that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, though? The amazing creativity of Maine’s musicians.

See Sonic Visions Grantees in Action!