• Search
Grants & Fellowship Opportunities

$50,000 - $100,000

Red Line Service Institute
$50,000
Chicago, IL
2023

To support “Designing Belonging,” a lecture and workshop series engaging houseless artists in the reimagination of public spaces in Chicago. The programming consists of eight public lectures featuring scholars and practitioners of design and two workshop series for houseless artists to co- design an object aimed at making public space more hospitable and to conduct research for a historic tour. The culminating event features a keynote talk on the history of access and exclusion in public space. The programs take place as part of the Terra Foundation initiative Art Design Chicago. 

Illinois Humanities
$50,000
Chicago, IL
2023

To support “Chicago Style: Fashion and Design, Past and Present,” a series of programs focused on the role of vernacular design—specifically fashion and style—in the lives of everyday South Side Chicagoans. A design cohort creates a new episode of the livestreamed web series, “Spinning Home Movies,” using archival footage, original music, and oral interviews that are screened in conjunction with moderated conversations at local thrift shops and at a culminating event, featuring a fashion show and discussion as well. The programs take place as part of the Terra Foundation initiative Art Design Chicago. 

Musée du Quai Branly
$75,000
Paris, France
2023

To support “New Insights on the 18th-Century Painted Hides Collected in Times of French Louisiana” in November 2023 at the Musée du Quai Branly (MQB). MQB will bring ten Native American partners from the Great Plains region to Paris to study the eighteen painted hides in the museum’s collection, focusing particularly on the exchange of knowledge and the development of a better understanding of the cultural attribution of these pieces. MQB aims to open a dialogue aimed at developing knowledge based on French, Miami, Peoria, Choctaw, Quapaw, and Natchez (Muscogee) perspectives. 

Chazen Museum of Art
$100,000
Madison, WI
2023

To support the finalization and dissemination of the re:mancipation project in print and on film. This multifaceted, multiyear initiative contextualizes an object in Chazen Museum of Art’s collection. Artist Sanford Biggers and MASK Consortium is working with Chazen staff to study and recontextualize Thomas Ball’s troubling sculpture Emancipation Group (1873). The grant supports a catalogue and a film that documents and disseminates the learnings of this collaborative project, and in this way contributes to the expansion of narratives of American art.

AWARE (Archives of Women Artists Research & Exhibitions)
$95,000
Paris, France
2023

To support Building Constellations, an initiative that includes the creation of a global network of artists, curators, scholars, and activists fostering the inclusion of women and non-binary artists within academic and institutional fields, as well as a two-day international convening with network members to be held in Paris in fall 2024, followed by a half-day public event. Modeling collaborative and inclusive practices in its implementation through the introduction of new methodologies, horizontal learning, and knowledge transmission, the project’s outcomes will be shared through website postings, newsletters, and the social media channels of partnering organizations as well as arts-related mailing lists. 

V&A East
$74,790
London, UK
2023

To contribute to V&A East Talks: Back-to-Back, a series of conversations among artists, designers, curators, and local community stakeholders organized by the Victoria & Albert Museum to gather local audiences, and in particular youth communities, for two new sites in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London, collectively known as “V&A East.” To be held in East London between February and November 2024, events will include conversations, handling sessions with objects, performances, and participatory workshops. Recordings and other digital content created from these events will be presented on the V&A’s online platforms and at the V&A East storehouse and museum after their opening in 2025.  

Hyde Park Art Center
$60,000
Chicago, Illinois
2023

To support the exhibition Alice Shaddle: Fuller Circles (March–July 2024), which examines the work and practice of Alice Shaddle (1928–2017), a Chicago artist and longtime Hyde Park Art Center teacher, who also co-founded the women’s artist collective and gallery Artemisia. The project is part of the Terra Foundation initiative Art Design Chicago.

Museum of Vernacular Arts and Knowledge
$100,000
Chicago, Illinois
2023

To fund planning activities for The New Art School Modality (NASM), a new art-school model grounded in the tenets of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s in Chicago and reflecting its ethos of collaboration, experimentation, and improvisation. During the planning phase, Museum of Vernacular Arts and Knowledge will offer three long-form and one or two short-form NASM programs, refine course design, develop its business model, identify institutional and funding partners, and define impact measures.   

Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo / Terra Foundation for American Art
$50,000
São Paulo, Brazil
2023

To support a two-year Terra Collection-in-Residence loan of six paintings and 30 works on paper from the Terra Foundation Collection and related programs. Artworks by 27 American artists, including Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, Clare Leighton, and William Zorach, are displayed in study galleries and are used for object-based teaching for students at several local universities. 

Woodmere Art Museum
$100,000
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2023

To support Drawn to Music: The Art of Jerry Pinkney at the Woodmere Art Museum. The exhibition features approximately 75 works from throughout the career of Jerry Pinkney (1939– 2021), whose more than 100 illustrated books have reached millions globally. As a Black artist, Pinkney interpreted American history and identity through the lens of music throughout his career. The exhibition will be at Woodmere (September 2023–January 2024) and then at the Eric Carle Museum (February–July 2024), and it may travel to additional venues. Educational materials in a variety of formats for scholars, families, and teachers accompany the exhibition.

Museu de Arte de São Paulo
$75,000
São Paulo, Brazil
2023

To support Melissa Cody—Webbed Skies (working title) at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP). Melissa Cody (b.1983) is a Navajo artist who belongs to the fourth generation of artists in her family. Cody’s weavings are made using the traditional techniques of the Navajo people, passed down from generation to generation. This temporary exhibition is situated within a year-long curatorial program dedicated to Indigenous Histories, a theme that provides the thematic axis of the museum’s 2023 programs. It is also the first solo show of Melissa Cody’s work in Brazil and, after its installation at MASP, it will travel to venues in the United States. An English and Portuguese catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
$50,500
Washington, D.C.
2023

To support the planning process of Shifting Boundaries: New Views on American Landscapes at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA). Shifting Boundaries offers an important new platform for previously underrepresented constituencies to consider human relationships to the natural world using the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art collections. Shifting Boundaries uses a model of community curation to make these works of art directly relevant to contemporary audiences through the lens of the environment. After the project, NMAA, with feedback from the curatorial group, will create a resource documenting the collaborative process, which will help both the institution and the field at large reflect on what worked well and what did not. This resource, which could take the form of a website or a conference presentation, aids other institutions considering similar projects.