Art Matters Foundation is pleased to announce a new regranting program titled Artist2Artist, where alumni grant recipients act as grantmakers. Last year, Art Matters recognized a broader category of culture workers in its grantmaking initiative by funding alternative support structures for artists, like mutual aid. Building on this shift, the Artist2Artist Fellowship program represents a new, horizontal model of giving that was created to affirm artists’ specialized knowledge of their communities.
13 alumni grantees were selected to both receive an Artist2Artist Fellowship and designate peer fellows in their extended networks. This process resulted in 36 artists and culture workers being awarded as 2021 Artist2Artist fellows in October for a total of 195K USD in grants to artists and collectives working in contemporary art, performance, and cultural organizing. There were no applications and the Board held no veto power beyond conflicts of interest. Alumni were selected based on the following themes:
Justice & Anti-Oppressive Practices (Disability; Gender/Sexuality; Race/Intersectionality)
Geographies (Labor/Migration; Transregionality/Transnationalism; Coalitions)
Cultures of Care (Medical, Spiritual, and Ecological Health)
Individual Interventions (Experimentation, Mutual Aid, Non-Productivity)
Reimagining Institutions (Alternative Support Structures)
These themes emerged from alumni feedback that identified non-productivity, coalition-building, accessibility, and combating isolationism in need of further support. In response, the Staff and Board moved away from institutional nominators toward a process of peer-led affirmation. Director Abbey Williams said, “Artist2Artist is a way of aligning ourselves with those already doing the work to dismantle the philanthropic systems that do not truly empower artists. We want to center artists’ sovereignty to clear the way for them to build something new.” And Artist2Artist fellow, jackie sumell, shared with Staff that the process recognized: “The networks that we form aren’t always based on the merits experienced in the outward facing of our work, and some of the most beautiful and celebratory experiences are in the intimate ways that we love on and support each other.”
2021 also marks the third year of the Betty Parsons…
