Grants awarded to 12 artist-led community well-being projects.

Wednesday August 2, 2023 | Arts & Cultural Affairs

L to R Clockwise: Ashawnti Sakina Ford's Breathe directed by Antonio Duke, Ashely DuBose-Rondo Music Series, Daunte Wright Arpillera by Camila Leiva, Hapistinna Graci Horne-printmaking, Kowsar D. Mohamed & Sara A. Osman-Tracing Our Footsteps, Art Is … a film by Tahiel Jimenez Medina.

Learn more about the 2023 projects here >

$180,000 in grant funding to 12 Artist-led teams to deliver community healing and support for the City’s most impacted communities

The City of Minneapolis is investing in creative healing for the community. The Arts & Cultural Affairs Department has awarded 12 Creative Response Fund grants for artist-led projects. These projects will focus on Minneapolis communities directly affected by trauma from the pandemic and the ongoing challenges communities continue to grapple with related to the murder of George Floyd.

Now in its fourth year of funding, the Creative Response Fund provided resources in 2021 for 15 teams of artists on urgently needed community healing projects and supported 51 local artists, 94% BIPOC and 63% Black. The work continued in 2022 with 12 Creative Response Fund projects, each team receiving $15,000 in project support. In 2023, once again 12 Creative Response Fund projects have been awarded.

These new grants are intended to continue to mobilize the unique and specialized skills of community based artists and designers to respond to community needs and engage with and expand the impact of community healing and support. The projects will provide the much-needed spaces for dialogue and engagement with communities impacted and affected by the trauma, stress and violence caused as a result of the long and painful history of police brutality disproportionately experienced by Black communities for generations.

This year’s projects center their work in cultural practices, marginalized voices, and local Indigenous knowledge and healing practices. Each project will embed creative healing into arts activities such as: outdoor safe spaces for community to gather in nature for personal healing, immersive walking tours through the Cedar-Riverside and East Franklin neighborhoods, mural making, exploring the ways music can inform one’s interior life, new film works and performances, textile and writing workshops. These projects are examples of the ways that artists collaborate with communities to define safe spaces for healing.

“We are honored to support these important Minneapolis artists who are investing their time and creativity into actively healing our community through the arts. As the Arts & Cultural Affairs department engages with all aspects of our diverse community,  we are heartened to know that such meaningful work will be created. This work resonates deeply with the community, and it sets the stage, in both big and small ways, for all of us to move forward collectively.” — Ben Johnson, Director, Arts & Cultural Affairs

Learn more about the 2023 projects here >