Detroit People’s Choice Awards – Teaser from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

Here we go, Detroit!

Starting today, you decide who will win the Knight Arts Challenge People’s Choice Award. Five up-and-coming organizations are competing for $20,000. Voting via text is open through Aug. 9.

We launched the People’s Choice Award to raise the profile of smaller arts organizations and to highlight the important role they play in the city’s arts scene. Get to know these groups better by viewing short videos of each finalist at knightarts.org/peopleschoice. In the end, we hope Detroiters will be inspired to join the city’s cultural community – whether by attending events, donating funds, lending expertise or becoming creators themselves.

The People’s Choice nominees are:

Complex Movements: An artist collective that expresses the connections between science and social justice through hip-hop, art-installations, interactive performance and technology; (Text ART1 to 22333)

East Side Riders: a group of artists who customize bikes as their means of creative expression; (Text ART2 to 22333)

Lo & Behold! Records & Books: a Hamtramck store that celebrates Detroit’s musical traditions through a monthly folk blues night; (Text ART3 to 22333)

Mt Elliott Makerspace:  a village workshop providing a place where people can create, tinker and learn together; (Text ART4 to 22333)

The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers: a curated, monthly event where Detroiters tell their true stories live onstage. (Text ART5 to 22333)

Each nominee is still a finalist and eligible for a matching grant in the Knight Arts Challenge, a community-wide contest that funds the best ideas for the arts in Detroit. We launched the challenge earlier this year, as part of a $19 million investment aimed at accelerating the creative community’s momentum in shaping the city’s future. Winners of both the challenge and the People’s Choice Award will be announced in September.

Take a moment and help an artist out. Tell your friends about knightarts.org/peopleschoice and vote by text through Aug. 9.

By Marika Lynch, communications consultant at Knight Foundation