Grants

Project Grants
Documentation of KAP Symposium
Paris, France
Brooks Leffler, Pacific Grove, California, will document and photograph all KAP presentations for the Drachen Foundation archive and website.

Leffler has been a leader in the worldwide Kite Aerial Photography [KAP] community for more than thirty years. His experience covers all areas of KAP-photography and photo exhibition, organization leadership, symposium directoring, and newsletter editing. Leffler edited "The Aerial Eye" from 1994 to 1999; he served on the American Kite Association board of directors in 1988, was the AKA Executive Director from 1990 to 1994, and still serves on the Kite Aerial Photography committee of the AKA. Leffler has also been involved in the kite import and retail business, having designed and marketed the kite known as Brooxes' Box.

Kite Survey
Southeastern coast, China
Peter Boekelheide, Oberlin College, Ohio, will research and photo-document Chinese kite makers, manufacturers, and archival institutions in the country's southeastern coastal region. He will report on his month-long field study and will cross-reference past kite research with his own discoveries.

Boekelheide, now a college senior pursuing a double major in computer science and East Asian Studies, spent his junior year studying in China. He is fluent in Chinese and began the groundwork for this Chinese kite study during his year abroad.

Kite Aerial Photography of California Gray Whales, Phase III
San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja, Mexico
Oscar Frey, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, will continue his use of KAP as an appropriate non-intrusive method to identify the gray whale, Eschrichtius robustus, and will determine optimal specifications for KAP rigs and techniques to collect valid data for scientific research.

Frey has been studying and documenting the behavior of whales for more than twenty years. Combining his knowledge of geological oceanography (B.A., Faculty of Marine Sciences, U.A.B.C. Ensenada, Baja California) with his skill as a professional photographer, he continues to experiment with state-of-the-art techniques to study and save the lives of whales.

Research into Russian Kite History
St Petersburg, Russia
Jan Desimpelaere, Wevelgem, Belgium, will work with a Russian professor of aviation and history in a search to uncover historic Russian military and scientific kite documents and photographs.

Desimpelaere is a leading historical kite restorer, researcher, and expert on the pre-flight history of kites and kite making. His personal collection serves as one of the world's best historical aviation archives, documenting worldwide development of the kite's role in science and history. He is among the dedicated European researchers who have devoted themselves to exhuming the secrets of the great turn-of-the century aeronautical pioneers. There is the thrill of the chase after lost secrets, the fun of making and flying kites, and the chance they'll hit gold-a forgotten but important insight by such as Bell or the Wrights or Cody or Hargrave or Saconney or Madiot.

Kite Survey and Exchange
Switzerland/Pakistan
Iqbal Husain, Switzerland, will survey existing kite makers and manufacturers in Pakistan and will carry out a cultural exchange of contemporary kites at its February kite festivals, during the most active kite flying season.

Husain is Pakistani by birth and fluent in four languages. He will collect information and samples to begin documentation of Pakistan's ancient kite heritage for the Drachen Foundation archive.

Photographic Kite Essay
France/Austria
Stephane Clerisse, France, will create a photographic essay about the work of Austrian kite maker Anna Rubin. A booklet, to include a guide that can be used in workshops and schools, will be produced and distributed by the Drachen Foundation.

A photographer by profession and passion, Clerisse is known and respected by the best European kite makers for the artistry with which he has documented their work.

Creative Grant Teresa Morani, Seattle Washington
Morani's grant will support implementation of "Signals: A Correspondence with Place," creating photographic images through the arrangement and interplay of earthbound sculptural constructions, kites, and landscape. Handmade 'signal' kites will each convey a unique message or idea; the kites and sculptural objects will be captured photographically from the ground as well as from aerial kites. Morani will produce a handmade artist book, an art kite, and an original photographic print.

Morani holds a BFA, cum laude, from the University of New Mexico, and has studied fine print photography at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland and at Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport. During study abroad in New South Wales, Australia, she took workshops in large-scale papermaking and non-adhesive binding for bookmakers. She works as a photographer and graphic designer, and has participated in group exhibitions in the United States and Australia.