Artists | Writers | Environments: A Grant Program

Please visit the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art website for more information at www.NevadaArt.org

Teams of visual artists and writers who are U.S. citizens working on art + environment projects anywhere in the world from July 2010 through August 2011 will be eligible to apply for the first A | W | E Grant. Letters of interest must be received via e-mail on or before Friday, March 26, 2010 with invited applications due on or before June 15, 2010. The grant recipients will be announced on or before July 1, 2010.

Please visit the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art website for more information at www.NevadaArt.org

The Nevada Museum of Art
Nevada’s only art museum was founded in Reno in 1931 and is a general art museum with a strong and longstanding focus on Art + Environment.

We are a museum of ideas. While building upon our founding collections and values, we cultivate meaningful art and societal experiences, and foster new knowledge in the visual arts by encouraging interdisciplinary investigation.  The Museum serves as a cultural and educational resource for everyone.

The Center for Art + Environment
The mission of the “CA+E” is to be a global leader in supporting the practice, study, and awareness of creative interactions between people and their environments. Three goals address this mission: To encourage the creation of artworks expressing the interaction between people and their natural, built, and virtual environments; to enable artists, scholars, and communities to document, research, and study such artworks; to increase public knowledge of these creative and scholarly endeavors.

A | W | E Grants
In 2010 the CA+E is piloting a grant program for visual artists and writers working together in the field. The purpose of the program is to encourage the creation of new art + environment projects that seek to address environmental challenges rather than simply comment on them, to foster deeper and more immediate public awareness of art + environment projects, and to encourage unique field reports of lasting value to scholars and other artists. The intent is for the writer(s) to document, report upon, and/or analyze the work of the artist(s) and its environmental context, not to provide creative responses such as fiction or poetry.

During this first year, one grant of $10,000 will be awarded to a team of artist(s) and writer(s) engaged in art + environment projects. Of particular interest will be those proposals addressing communities stressed by global change. Publication venues by writers can include articles in magazines, journals, or online, and chapters or essays in books, but significant public outreach will be favored.

Eligibility
Eligible teams will include at least one visual artist working in the field and one writer to accompany the artist into the field during the project. Artists can work in any medium, and the writers range from journalists to art historians. The total amount of the award may be divided between the artists and writers in any way they see fit. Funds may be used for travel, per diem, materials, equipment, and other costs, including time to work.

Applications during this first year are open only to artists and writers who are U.S. citizens, although they may work anywhere in the world. In future years we hope to broaden eligibility to artists and writers from other countries.

Application Process, Deadlines, Timeline
Interested artists and/or writers should submit a two-page letter of interest by e-mail on or before Friday, March 26th, 2010. Letters should include a brief project description, budget and biographies of the artist(s) and writer(s). Please identify your letter of interest in the subject line of the e-mail when submitting as “AWE letter.”

Finalists will be selected by April 30 and invited to mail in a physical application that will include a longer narrative, budget, documentation of citizenship and previous works, and resumes.

Applications will be due on or before June 15, 2010 with the award announced on or before July 1. Finalist proposals will be posted on the Museum’s A+E website, as well as that of the award recipient, upon awarding of the grant.

Archives, Exhibitions, Presentations
Finalists’ application materials will not be returned, but become part of the CA+E Archives. Although the artworks and writings of the grant recipients will remain property of their creators, the CA+E will collect related project materials of the funded project for its archives.

Results of the funded project will be exhibited at the Museum, and the recipients of the grant be invited to present their work.

FAQ’s
We strongly suggest that applicants visit the Nevada Museum of Art website and navigate to the Center for Art + Environment pages, and in particular the A | W | E FAQ page for more information (also attached in this email). The FAQs may be updated periodically as we receive questions.

Contact
Letters of interest sent via e-mail with the subject line “AWE letter,” as well as any questions, should be directed to Rosalind Bedell, CA+E Manager. Please see the FAQ on the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art website for contact information

Funding
The A | W | E Grant is supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.