NEA granted 18 awards totaling $437,000 for Seattle; $82 M Nationwide
SEATTLE (May 10, 2016) —The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) received a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts(NEA), it is one of 18 awards, totaling $437,000 for Seattle. The grant for ARTS will support an artist in residence program focused on increasing racial equity in arts and culture organizations.
The NEA grant is part of their Art Works awards which supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields. In total the NEA is awarding more than $82 million to fund local arts projects and partnerships nationwide.
“The NEA’s support for local artists and organizations is invaluable for us thrive as a creative and innovative city,” says Mayor Murray. “This grant will help us deepen our efforts to create a more just and equitable society through the arts. We know that cultural organizations, artists, and their art play a unique role in witnessing, inspiring and creating a stage on which we can work towards eliminating societal inequity and injustice.”
“The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Supporting projects like the one from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”
The NEA Art Works grant will support the third phase of the Office of Arts & Culture and Office for Civil Rights’ Turning Commitment into Action (TCA) program which aims to provide arts and cultural organizations the training and the skills to address barriers to racial equity within the arts and implement change. The first phase of TCA was a racial equity cohort for arts and cultural organizations, offering trainings on racial equity and tools to create a racial equity plan, which reached 30 organizations. The second phase slated to begin in late 2016 is a teaching artist cohort that will provide individual teaching artists the opportunity to share best teaching practices in the arts through a racial equity lens. The third phase planned for 2017-18, which the Art Works grant supports, creates an artist-in-residence program centered on racial equity, matching individual teaching artists with arts and cultural organizations to develop best practices in the creative artistic process, deepen community engagement and create opportunities to remove barriers to access in the arts.
For more information about the Turning Commitment into Action program visit http://www.seattle.gov/arts/turning-commitment-into-action. For more information on NEA awards visit https://www.arts.gov/.
