Twenty-four city arts and cultural projects have been awarded grants as part of Imagine Greater Louisville 2020: An Arts and Cultural Vision to Transform the Region, a $500,000 funding effort from the Fund for the Arts, the Jennifer Lawrence Arts Fund at the Fund for the Arts and Metro Louisville.
Groups submitted 187 proposals for funding, totaling $4.4 million in requests.
The review process of the grants — which were submitted by arts organizations, nonprofits, schools and individual artists — included two levels of assessment. The first was conducted by 22 local arts and civic leaders, the second by reviewers from three peer cities: Nashville, Lexington and Cincinnati.
In a news release, District 15 Councilwoman Marianne Butler said the city is proud to leverage these grants to impact all parts of the city.
“These projects range from addressing bullying in the classroom and overcoming trauma to supporting cultural professionals through resource utilization,” Butler said.
Here is a complete list of the projects that will receive funding:
Discover Drama—Resilience, Bellewood School - $4,810
Fiber Arts Community in South Louisville, The Lou Tate Foundation
d.b.a. The Little Loomhouse - $3,385
Peacebuilding and Community Strengthening through Art, Side by Side Studio, Inc. - $5,000
Explore More, Play Cousins Collective - $3,126
LaCucarachita Children's Production, Teatro Tercera Llamada - $4,900
20th Annual Louisville Jewish Film Festival, Jewish Community of Louisville, Inc. - $4,800
Seven Generations, Bridge Kids International - $5,000
Best Practices in Access and Inclusion: Sensory-Friendly HAMLET, Western Middle School for the Arts - $3,840
Communities of Iroquois, Louisville Story Program - $7,500
Puppet Hero Parade, Squallis Puppeteers – $20,075
Taking Art in a New Direction, Louisville Visual Art - $17,650
Project Ready: LYRICS, Louisville Urban League - $10,000
Mixing Matters, Rhythm Science Sound - $15,450
Louisville Cultural Accessibility Association, Kentucky Center for the Arts Foundation - $11,650
Sarabande Writing Labs, Sarabande Books, Inc. - $8,850
Relevance to the Present. Discovering Slave Narratives. Understanding Ourselves. Portia White - $10,750
The G.A.P Cultivation Program and Documentary, The Gap Felony Prevention Program - $24,933
We Create: Artists and Refugees Celebrate Making Louisville Home, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Inc. - $20,522
Imagine 2020 Concert Series, Louisville Federation of Musicians - $10,000
Capacity Building & Program Launch, ELEVATOR Artist Resource - $20,000
Producing Art In Neighborhoods Together Open Call, Center For Neighborhoods - $20,000
Portraits of Pride, William M. Duffy, Sculptor - $11,700
Music Together, Yani Vozos - $15,800
K-8 Arts Integration Teacher Leadership Team, Academic Services/Jefferson County Public Schools - $22,862
In early 2017, Fund for the Arts aided in the launch of IGL 2020 as a way to generate a citywide plan for how arts and culture could serve as a catalyst for social change. There were five key strategies of the IGL 2020 vision statement — Access, Education, Cultivation, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and Promotion — and each project above addressed at least one.
Of the 24 proposals funded, 18 focus specifically on at-risk neighborhoods, 16 directly on engaging youth, and 6 with specific populations.
In a news release, Penny Peavler and Roger Cude, co-chairs of the IGL 2020 Steering Committee, wrote it was gratifying to see the community come together “to tackle many of our greatest challenges through arts and culture.”
“We’re able to fund just over 10 percent of this first round of proposals,” they wrote. “This shows us a number of things, namely that our creatives are hungry to affect change, the funding needs are vast, and more importantly, our work has just begun.”