Call for Artists: Creative Response Funds Available for Community-Based Artists to Support Community Well Being
Thursday March 17, 2022 | Arts & Cultural Affairs
2021 Creative Response Fund (CRF) projects, clockwise L to R: Resiliency Through Soliloquy, Star Girl Clan, Rise Up! Cinderella! Brujería for Beginners, The Rock Royalty Experience.
The City of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs invites applications for a second round of the Creative Response Fund-Community Well-Being grant. Community based artists in Minnesota are invited to gather a team and apply for grants of up to $15,000 per project, 12 projects will be selected in 2022.
Apply here.
In 2020, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the subsequent community uprisings, the City of Minneapolis’ Arts & Cultural Affairs Department supported the work of local artists and designers on urgently needed community healing focused projects. In 2021 Arts & Cultural Affairs continued to fund community healing by supporting 15 artist led project teams and a total of 74 artists. The funded projects responded to community needs and centered their work in community driven cultural practices and local indigenous knowledge. Projects embedded creative healing into arts activities such as, dance, drums, songwriting, performance, improv theater; poetry; a cultural gathering in the form of a bilingual play; sound healing; cellphone filmmaking as a tool for empowerment; audio stories on healing medicines, and what it means to belong; site-specific installations, hands-on activities for youth; storytelling and film. These projects are examples of ways that artists collaborate with communities to define their own safe spaces for healing.
Learn more about the 2021 projects here>
Arts & Cultural Affairs is pleased to continue to offer Creative Response Funding to Minnesota resident community-based artists working teams in 2022 for projects that provide creative healing and support to Minneapolis communities who continue to be directly impacted and affected by the stress and trauma of the past two years. Along with the lasting effects of the pandemic, communities are coping with the trials and sentencing of three former Minneapolis police officers, the recent killing of Amir Locke, and continued police violence.
These projects are intended to provide creative healing and support to communities directly 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. These grant dollars are also intended to recognize the often-unpaid labor of artists as they respond to multiple health and racism emergencies and mobilize their creative resources to address community needs.
Grant Amount: $15,000.00
Application Deadline: April 13th, at 11:59 pm CST. (earliest project start date is June 1, 2022)
Apply here.
Interested in applying or have questions? Information sessions will be available via Zoom on March 21 and March 31 4:00-6:00pm. RSVP here to receive webinar link https://bit.ly/3M13yhy
The Creative Response Fund is a project of Creative CityMaking
Publisher's Note: The name, "The Office of Arts, Culture & the Creative Economy" has been updated on August 13, 2023 where it appeared within the content of this article to "Arts & Cultural Affairs" to reflect its new name as a department of the City of Minneapolis.