2022-2023 Artist Applications Open for the Platforms Fund's Annual Project Grants
New Orleans: An Artist's Playground
Here, in New Orleans, you
don't have to walk into a gallery on Royal or Julia Street to get a taste of
our best artists. The fact is, this city practically bleeds art installations
and breeds artists of all creeds and colors: musicians, painters, sculptors, you
name it. You may wonder, where do all these creative people get their
inspiration? The answer is really quite simple: it's hard to not find
inspiration in a city like New Orleans. It's comparable to plopping a research botanist
into the heart of the Amazon Rainforest or giving a marine biologist diving
gear and a sturdy boat off the coast of Australia. Research will be done; breakthroughs
will be made.
For the run-of-the-mill artist in New Orleans, you can turn a street corner and find your muse passionately strumming a cello in the French Quarter, or, perhaps, your study is found on a lazy streetcar ride passing under Spanish moss-covered trees reaching endlessly towards a bright blue sky. Whatever it is, if it's something worth seeing, feeling, or experiencing, an artist will immortalize it, and New Orleans is all of those things, which is exactly why it's so important to support our local artists in any way we can. The Platforms Fund is doing exactly that, and applications are open for their 2022-2023 Art Project Grant Period. If you're an artist looking to make an impact on our city, then this opportunity may just be for you.
About the Platforms Fund
The Platforms Fund, at
its core, seeks to support artists outside the typical realm of galleries and
museums. Platform Fund Grant awardees are artists that reach out to the greater
community, in a public setting or non-traditional exhibition with an aim for
social change. Working together as a whole, Ashé Cultural Art Center, Antenna, Junebug
Productions, and the Andy Warhol Foundation are the key collaborators that
created the Platform Fund. Formed back in 2007, the Andy Warhol Foundation Regional
Regranting Program had a mission to give support and recognition to artists and
their projects that lay outside the realm of traditional funding resources. Fighting
to support artist-centered activities that are independently organized and
aimed toward the public eye, the Andy Warhol Foundation works in partnership
with non-profit organizations throughout the United States in funding artistic
collaborations and undertakings. The Platforms Fund is the Andy Warhol
Foundation's ode to the independent artistic movement in the city of New
Orleans, and applications for the 2022-2023 grant season are opening this July
15.
The 2022-2023 Grant Season Application for the Platforms Fund
Annually, New Orleans'
artists have the opportunity to apply for project grants of up to $6,000 and
research & development grants of $1500. Applicants and eventual awardees of
the Platforms Fund can be individual artists, art groups, or collective artists
creating or seeking to create works with a strong visual element and a focus on
communities, histories, and regional ecologies and their broader implications.
Ultimately, the Platforms Fund hopes to bolster artistic initiatives with an
aim for social change.
The application has two grant
categories, which are Research & Development and Project Implementation. Research
& Development grants go towards projects in the early stages of realization,
with artists still planning and developing their project. In this stage, the
Platforms Fund desires to help artists with their initial outreach and project
development, and in the future, Research & Development grantees can apply
for Project Implementation grants the following year.
Project Implementation
grants from the Platforms Fund are aimed toward projects that are much closer
to realization, with a timeline in mind, finalized budgets, and confirmed
partners. These grants are awarded to projects nearing presentation at some
point throughout the 2022-2023 granting period.
If you have a project in
the New Orleans area that's in the early stages of planning and development or is
just about ready to show to the public, then this application with the
Platforms Fund may just be for you. You can get more information on the
application process here. Applications
will be opening July 15 and closing August 1, so don't hesitate to contact the Platforms Fund with
any questions and get going on your application. Applications are reviewed by a
panel of five jurors, nominated by Antenna, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Junebug Productions,
and the Andy Warhol Foundation. Multiple grants are awarded each year, totaling
up to $60,000 in support of New Orleans-based artists. Grantees chosen by the
Platforms Fund will be notified and congratulated on September 15, 2022, and
this could be you and your team!
Art in New Orleans is
something worth supporting and celebrating, and the Platforms Fund is doing
exactly that. Don't wait to apply!
