Washingtoner - Tacoma: 2025 AMOCAT Arts Award Winners Announced

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The Tacoma Arts Commission has announced this year's AMOCAT Arts Award winners: Tacoma Public Library (Arts Patron), Remakery and Mi Centro (Community Outreach by an Organization), and Saiyare Refaei and Irina Rasputnis (Community Outreach by an Individual). The AMOCAT Arts Awards honor the people and organizations that positively impact the community with their passion, innovation, and commitment to the arts. (Photo Courtesy of Mi Centro)

Arts Patron Award

The Arts Patron award recognizes Tacoma Public Library for its dedication to creating a radically welcoming hub for discovery, creativity, and community connection.

Tacoma Public Library empowers residents by providing free access to information and ideas across its eight neighborhood branches, and by hosting year-round programming that encourages exploration, dialogue, and creative expression. Through a partnership with Tacoma Creates, the Library has significantly expanded public access to high-quality cultural programming while boosting collaboration across Tacoma's arts and culture sector.

The Library is also home to the Community Hub at the Main Branch, an innovative shared space with partner organizations including Write253, Remakery, and the Tacoma Tool Library. Signature events such as Tacoma Wayzgoose and Tacoma Reads further highlight the Library's role as a vital patron of the arts, fostering resilience, creativity, and community connection citywide.

Community Outreach by an Organization Award

The Community Outreach by an Organization award recognizes Remakery and Mi Centro for their work advancing equity and access through arts-based community programming.

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Remakery is a creative reuse nonprofit where arts, sustainability, and accessibility meet. Since 2023, Remakery has hosted workshops, pop-ups, and classes that invite people to create with existing materials, from crocheting with t-shirt yarn to sewing quilt coats or recycling plastic trash into buttons. Their free monthly mending nights, craft swaps, and large-scale community events bring people together across generations. In 2024, Remakery opened a physical location on the second floor of Tacoma Public Library's Main Branch, offering hands-on making opportunities and secondhand materials for purchase by the pound.

Mi Centro is a community-based nonprofit rooted in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood since 2001, with a legacy of service dating back to 1983 under its former namesake, Centro Latino-SER: Jobs for Success. Mi Centro provides wrap-around support to Latine and Indigenous families through education, advocacy, outreach, and culturally relevant arts programming. Its four core programs include the Maru Mora Centro Familiar, the Dolores Huerta Institute, Camino al Éxito: Centro de Negocios, and the Arreguín Arts & Culture Center.

Over the years, Mi Centro has engaged more than 100 artists and creatives through programming and events, while tripling participation between 2022 and 2024. Highlights include the sold-out "El Noroeste Art Show" at Tacoma Art Museum featuring Cheech Marin, the 20th Annual Día de los Muertos celebration with more than 2,500 attendees, and the launch of Tacoma's Latine Pride, which the organization has hosted for two consecutive years. The 2024 Latine Pride earned Mi Centro the Tacoma Pride Ruby Award.

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Community Outreach by an Individual Award

The Community Outreach by an Individual award recognizes Saiyare Refaei and Irina Rasputnis for their deep commitment to building community through creative action.

Saiyare Refaei (they/them/she/her) is a Chinese-Iranian artist based in Tacoma, whose mediums include murals, printmaking, digital drawings, and poetry. A member of the Justseeds Artist Cooperative, Saiyare uses art as a bridge for community building, education, and healing. They have been published in We Need a Reckoning: Poetry, Essays, and Memoir by Women and Non-Binary People of Color and illustrated the workbook for Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. Their collaborative community art projects include the Parkland Community Mural Project (2013), 5 Stages with Tiffanny Hammonds (Spaceworks 2017), Re-emerging in Healing (Spaceworks 2018), and a recent mural created with students at the Farm at Franklin Pierce Schools.

Irina Rasputnis is a Tacoma-based arts organizer who uses music and art as vehicles for community building. She is the organizer of Tacoma Porchfest, a neighborhood music festival staged on porches across Central Tacoma, and Tacoma HONK! Fest, a vibrant celebration of street bands in McKinley Hill. Irina also directs the Tacomarama Community Street Band, an all-ages, all-levels ensemble that welcomes everyone. Across all her projects, she emphasizes creating spaces where neighbors can connect, fostering meaningful exchanges and mutual care.

Awards Presentation

The 2025 AMOCAT Arts Awards will be presented during the Tacoma Arts Month Proclamation at the Tacoma City Council meeting on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, at 5 p.m. in Council Chambers at the Tacoma Municipal Building (747 Market Street, 1st floor).

Filed Under: Government, City

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