New cycle of funding launched for leading arts organizations that connect innovative art-making with 21st century population changes in the U.S.

America is changing.  Dramatic demographic changes are altering the way we think about rapidly shifting categories like “majority” and “minority” in our cities, towns, states, and regions.

As America changes, so are its arts.  The arts connect the private and public realms of our lives. They are also a barometer of our ideas, dreams, anxieties, and aspirations.

In an effort to better understand how art-making in America reflects—and frequently helps people negotiate in their communities—the new opportunities and challenges of population changes among art audiences, participants, and creators, New York-based LINC (Leveraging Investments in Creativity) is launching this month a new cycle of grants open to all exemplary, diverse American arts organizations through its grantmaking program, ARTOGRAPHY: Arts in a Changing America.

According to Roberta Uno, Program Officer for Arts and Culture at the Ford Foundation, “As America shifts towards an increasingly diverse population, ARTOGRAPHY presents an opportunity to see how creativity has been enriched by expanded cultural traditions and multiple points of view. ARTOGRAPHY grantees are in the cultural forefront of providing insight into our country’s historic and new narratives—as well as connecting us to a global citizenry.”

Two-year grants under the ARTOGRAPHY program in this round will include funds for activities with a special focus on how selected organizations can be more actively engaged in documenting what they do and sharing the lessons nationally.  This grantmaking and field learning program seeks to achieve its goals by:

• Supporting artistically exemplary, diverse, and community-responsive arts organizations
• Establishing a dynamic learning community of practitioners in order to document and share ideas and practices
• Enriching the vocabulary, concepts, and strategies for addressing arts and culture

“The arts speak to the strengths of intangibles such as community, public value, and pluralism,” said LINC Executive Director, Judilee Reed, “but without a firm foundation on practice, these words stand the risk of losing meaning.  ARTOGRAPHY is different from other grant programs in that it does not only offer financial support to art organizations, it also invites them to help re-shape the way we think, talk, and act about art in the 21st century.”

In 2005, ARTOGRAPHY offered a first round of grants to thirteen organizations from across the country.  These organizations’ participation in this program focused on knowledge exchange and has provided a foundation upon which to build greater, more meaningful comprehension of the questions posed when confronting art in the context of changing cultures.

Arts organizations of mid-size that fit the scope of this program are encouraged to submit a preliminary grant proposal.  Proposals must be submitted by January 30, 2009.

ARTOGRAPHY is offered by LINC with funding from the Ford Foundation. LINC is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to enhance the capacity of artists to create work, build social capital, and contribute to democratic values.

For more information about ARTOGRAPHY and guidelines about the open call for grant proposals, please visit www.artsinachangingamerica.net.

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