AMOCAT ARTS AWARD WINNERS
Honoring Tacoma’s arts champions
The AMOCAT Arts Awards celebrate the people and organizations who uplift Tacoma’s cultural scene. These awards honor those who create space for the arts to thrive, build lasting community connections, and reflect Tacoma’s rich diversity of voices. Each year during Tacoma Arts Month, we recognize individuals, organizations, and patrons whose creative work and leadership inspire us all!
COmmunity outreach by individual
Saiyare Refaei
Saiyare’s practice is inseparable from their support and care of our community. From the literal streets (If It Hits the Ground, It Hits the Sound) to workshops, Saiyare uplifts intersectional voices with compassion and bold creativity, modeling what it means to serve and empower through the arts.
Visual artist, cultural organizer, and educator
Saiyare Refaei is a Tacoma-based muralist, printmaker, and cultural worker whose community-rooted projects center environmental justice, healing, and accessibility. Her work includes bilingual murals, collaborative zines, and hands-on workshops designed to amplify youth voices, immigrant stories, and BIPOC-led movements.
She has facilitated block printing and artmaking with incarcerated youth, curated exhibits reflecting immigrant solidarity, and led multilingual arts programs focused on healing and resistance. Her work consistently uplifts community-based narratives and embraces art as a tool for connection and transformation.
“Saiyare builds community through co-creating public art with incarcerated youth, zine-making with immigrant communities, and multilingual healing workshops. She is a generous collaborator, a skilled educator, and a visionary artist.”
IRINA RASPUTINIS
Irina’s organizing is marked by deep collaboration and trust in community power. Whether through street parades or sidewalk pop-ups, she helps reclaim public space with art that feels accessible, celebratory, and community-centered.
Grassroots cultural organizer and radical joy cultivator
Irina Rasputina is a cultural organizer and writer known for producing some of Tacoma’s most grassroots, joy-filled neighborhood events, including Tacoma Porchfest, Tacoma HONK!, and Tacomarama. Her work creates opportunities for connection through music, play, and public celebration, often centering mutual aid, disability visibility, immigrant voices, and queer and trans liberation.
“Irina is the reason Tacoma has Porchfest, Tacomarama, and HONK!—each one a joyful, DIY, inclusive festival that makes space for disabled, queer, immigrant, and working-class people to thrive and celebrate together.”
Community outreach by organization
MI CENTRO
Mi Centro is a long-standing community organization whose arts programming provides vital cultural connection and creative opportunity for Tacoma’s Latine and Indigenous residents. Through events such as Día de los Muertos, dance and music classes, visual art workshops, and cultural festivals, they uplift intergenerational identity and community pride.
Latine arts and cultural organization rooted in community service
Mi Centro supports artists by offering performance and exhibition space, artist residencies, and education programs for youth and families. Their work reflects a deep commitment to cultural preservation, language justice, and accessibility—making art a powerful tool for celebration and resilience.
“Mi Centro centers Indigenous and Latine culture through dance, music, visual arts, and storytelling. Their programs are free, intergenerational, and deeply rooted in the community.”
REMakery
Remakery is a nonprofit dedicated to creative reuse, sustainability, and access to the arts. Their welcoming space is stocked with salvaged art supplies, tools, and materials, available at low or no cost to the community. Through free and low-cost workshops, youth programs, and public events, Remakery empowers people to create, share skills, reimagine, and remake.
Creative reuse center and community education hub
In addition to serving as a materials resource, Remakery collaborates with artists, schools, and grassroots groups on community projects that promote environmental and economic justice through the arts. As a founding tenant of the Tacoma Public Library’s new Community Hub, they’ve deepened their impact with expanded programming and visibility.
“Remakery is a model of sustainable community arts. They provide access to reused materials and teach skills that help people create instead of consume. It’s where people go to learn, make, and belong.”
Arts patron
tacoma public library
Tacoma Public Library has been a long-time collaborator with artists and cultural organizations, providing exhibit and workshop space, staff support, and community outreach across its citywide branches. In 2025, with the reopening of its historic Main Branch, TPL reimagined what a library can be for a creative city.
Champion of creative access and cultural collaboration
The Main Branch now houses the Community Hub, a national model that offers nonprofits rent-reduced space and public visibility, while amplifying the library’s mission through year-round programming. The branch also includes a gallery, recording studio, and makerspace that support free access to creative tools and opportunities.
Through its partnership with Tacoma Creates, TPL co-presents cultural programs across all eight neighborhood branches—offering organizations a free, reliable space and the public increased access to arts opportunities in their own neighborhoods.
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“Tacoma Public Library has consistently supported cultural programming—not just by offering space, but by investing in relationships with artists and organizations.”
ʔuk’ʷədiitəb ʔuhigʷətəb čəɫ txʷəl tiiɫ ʔa čəɫ ʔal tə swatxʷixʷtxʷəd ʔə tiiɫ puyaləpabš dxʷəsɫaɫlils gʷəl ʔutxʷəlšucidəbs həlgʷəʔ.
We gratefully acknowledge that we rest on the traditional lands of the Puyallup People where they make their home and speak the Lushootseed language.