International Deadline: Annual Recurring January 31 – The Fund makes awards ($500-1,500) to individual feminist women in the arts whose work focuses upon women. We are interested in funding projects…
Submitted by Carmen Graciela Díaz on April 5, 2021
NDN Collective announced recently that the charges against Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective President and CEO, and all other Land Defenders arrested on July 3 in the Black Hills will be dropped.
This comes after months of political pressure from grassroots groups, including petitions, social media campaigns, and local and national media coverage of the cases, the press release states.
Submitted by Carmen Graciela Díaz on April 5, 2021
“How can we support artists across the country, keeping in mind that each community presents a unique set of circumstances? The answer is simple, yet often overlooked: we do it together.”
Deana Haggag and Shelley Trott write in Artnet about a new collaborative fellowship between Kenneth Rainin Foundation and United States Artists to support artists in the Bay Area.
Four Bay Area artists are the inaugural recipients of The Rainin Fellowship. Administered by United States Artists, the Fellowship funds artists working across Dance, Film, Public Space, and Theater who push the boundaries of creative expression, anchor local communities, and advance the field, explains the announcement.
They write,
Working together over the last two years, we created the Rainin Fellowship—an annual program that provides artists with $100,000 each in unrestricted funds, as well as a variety of professional supports. By pairing the Rainin Foundation’s deep understanding of our local community with United States Artists’ national lens and expertise working directly with artists, the result is something both resource-rich and finely calibrated to the needs of a specific place. We built this fellowship to respond to the issues facing artists in the Bay, but the partnership model behind the program can and should be used in communities across the country.
Submitted by Carmen Graciela Díaz on April 5, 2021
The Associated Press reported recently corporate giving to racial equity causes has far outpaced donations from foundations and individual philanthropists since Floyd’s killing in May, according to the philanthropy research organization Candid.
As we begin to move into warmer, more outdoorsy months, so too does the artistic life of our cities shift gears. Outdoor performances, street musicians, and seasonal installations are all bound to return in full force soon enough. One of the most distinctive outdoors art practices has already come out of hibernation—graffiti. And no location in Montréal radiates with the nuanced vibrancy of graffiti and mural work quite so much as the picturesque Tunnel de Rouen.
The Tunnel de Rouen is an overpass situated on Rouen Street in the area of Hochelaga, industrial train tracks running overtop it with apartment buildings and stores dotting either end of the short tunnel. Adorning every inch of the overpass, from wall to ceiling, are vivid murals and tags that call out to every passerby. As one of the only legal tagging locations across all of Montréal, it’s a hotspot for artists and taggers across the city throughout the warmer parts of the year. Painters line the sidewalks throughout most of the day, music blaring from speakers, drink cans at the ready, and supplies strewn across the concrete studio and canvas.
An inspiring piece of the city’s rich artistic tapestry, Tunnel de Rouen is an injection of brightness amidst the rather flat urban aesthetic that surrounds it. It is a cultural staple of the community of Hochelaga, and while neighbouring development projects have seemed at one time or another to encroach on the ability for artists to freely use this space, it has thankfully held strongly as a legal graffiti wall. Every new chunk of concrete built near the tunnel is quickly christened with a new face.
Montréal has a prominent relationship with public art, easily noticed with one walk around the city. Although Tunnel de Rouen may be one of the only legal free-for-all spaces, entire buildings are adorned with poignant murals all across the city. Saint-Laurent is an especially vibrant collection of pieces, making it no wonder that Mural Fest is held along that busy street every summer, vendors lining the shutdown streets and artists working on new pieces all along the stretch.
The nature of the pieces in the Tunnel de Rouen is as varied as could be—from stunningly realistic portraits to glitteringly bombastic tags; from representations of iconic cartoons to messages of hope, determination, and solidarity. It’s one of the simplest indicators of just how culturally diverse and rich the practice is for anyone who may turn their nose up at the idea of graffiti. It’s not only the Banksys of the world who are throwing up meaningful works in public spaces.
There is something incredibly special about Tunnel de Rouen that speaks to the essence of the medium. It combines the impact of large-scale graffiti, something that stares outward with such feelings of permanence, with the infinite transience of time. Some pieces only last days, maybe weeks, in Montréal’s devoted graffiti tunnel. The walls are an ever-shifting gallery, painted over each other again and again, making for new discoveries every day of the week. If you’re lucky, you can find a crumbled panel from the tunnel, the weight of countless works having brought it down, and showing layer upon colourful layer of passion that created this artifact. In the Tunnel de Rouen art is forever, but not forever.
U.S. National Deadline: Ongoing – The Richmond Art Center accepts exhibition proposals on a rolling basis for individual, group or community-themed shows. The Richmond Art Center is the largest visual arts center…
International Deadline: April 19, 2021 – Atlanta Photography Group invites photographers to enter images using any photographic process for our upcoming juried exhibition, Portfolio 2021. Purchase awards…
Submitted by Carmen Graciela Díaz on April 1, 2021
For the month of April, GIA’s photo banner features work supported by the Essex County Community Foundation.
This is the text Essex County Community Foundation submitted for this Spotlight:
In 2018, Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF), which serves the 34 cities and towns of Essex County, MA, partnered with the Barr Foundation for a groundbreaking multi-million-dollar investment in local arts, culture and creativity, a sector that was thriving but primed for additional support to meet its full potential.
Four years into this incredible journey and ECCF, through its Creative County Initiative (CCI), has helped foster systemic support for arts and culture across our region through grantmaking, large and small-scale cross-sector convenings, capacity-building trainings, a regional online arts hub, and municipal planning that is inclusive of arts and culture. During these especially challenging times, ECCF also created virtual meetups, where connections are made and ideas morph into creative, collaborative solutions just when we need them most.
ECCF believes that arts, culture and creativity matter to our cities and towns. The arts lift us up, give us hope, bring us together and drive our local economies. The systems-based approach of CCI is beginning to build a much stronger ecosystem for arts, culture and creative enterprise that will be more sustainable, equitable and accessible for all in our region.
In March 2021, ECCF launched the CCI ChangeMakers program, an eight-month leadership support program for creative civic leaders. Facilitated and project-based learning, together with peer networking and leadership trainings will open new, critical pathways for cultural equity, resource-sharing and cross- sector collaboration. The members of our diverse cohort will put their learnings into action by developing a certification project to inspire future work in their communities. Imagine people coming together to transform a failing shopping center into a creative hub or rally support and funding for public art that is accessible to all.
“This sense of connectedness is the real heart of our Creative County Initiative,” said ECCF President and CEO Beth Francis. “As with other facets of community foundation work, fostering relationships and building trust among the people who live, work and play in our region – creating that system – is how we can successfully rise to the challenges that we face together.”
Essex County Community Foundation joined Grantmakers in the Arts in 2020.
You can also visit Essex County Community Foundation’s photo gallery on GIA’s Photo Credits page.
ECCF’s Creative County Initiative has supported projects and programs across the region like Iluminacion Lawrence. Beginning with clock tower and bridge, city-wide lighting project aims to create a warm, safe, and inviting public realm experience at night using the dynamic medium of LED lighting and projections.
Image: Creative Collective