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About

Mission

In partnership with organizations and individuals locally and globally, the Terra Foundation fosters intercultural dialogues and encourages transformative practices to expand narratives of American art.

Vision

To illuminate diverse histories, inspire present connections, and create equitable futures.

Values

Cultural Humility

We embrace curiosity and call upon ourselves to listen, learn, and remain open-minded. We engage multiple perspectives to shape our work and practices, recognizing and learning from varied forms of wisdom and world-making.

Equity and Inclusion

We commit to equity and inclusion, where all people belong, are valued, and are treated justly. We center racial equity in our values; recognizing the structural harm inflicted on communities of color, we advance approaches that redress systemic inequities in their many manifestations.

Partnership and Collaboration

We facilitate exchange and dialogue among organizations and individuals by investing time and resources to build and sustain authentic, peer-driven, relationally based partnerships. We are participants in a collective enterprise to effect positive growth and change in the field of American art and to transform its impact in the world.

Experimentation and Adaptiveness

We support bold, courageous, often experimental work that challenges the status quo and helps us reimagine American art—its histories, systems, and practices. Driven by a belief in the necessity of responsive adaptation, we embrace opportunities to support immediate and emerging needs within the arts and cultural sphere.

Letter from our President & CEO, Winter 2024

As we have embraced the foundation’s new mission over the past year, we are proud to have supported 139 organizations with over $14 million devoted to projects that expand narratives of American art. Among these grants are collection installations that engage new modes of curatorial practice to include a plurality of voices and perspectives, convenings that bring together interdisciplinary scholars from around the world to participate in dialogue around practice change in the field, and temporary exhibitions that reimagine and make accessible the stories of American art.

Advancing our goals to foster lasting impacts though our grantmaking, we envision relationships and partnerships that lead to deep engagements over extended periods of time. This past year, we supported organizations that are implementing innovative models in their exhibition research, development, interpretation, programming, and display. These supported exhibitions and collections projects are telling powerful stories, changing how organizations are working, and connecting with communities in creative ways. Developed through years of research and planning, these projects have been organized with the support of numerous internal and external collaborative teams, often comprising individuals whose stories are being told. Exhibition and collection planning grants have made possible many first-time or sustained community collaborations. At the same time, hundreds of artists have been featured in exhibitions that deepen and nuance our understandings of their work while also bringing to light other, less widely recognized artistic practices.

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