*Los Angeles – The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) is pleased to announce a pilot cycle of its Neighborhood Engagement Artist Residency Grant Program (NEAR), formerly the Artist in Residence Grant Program (AIR), and launch of a new Creative Opportunities-Optimizing Promise Grant Program (CO-OP) to foster creative collaborations at social justice organizations.
“Both DCA grant programs honor and support an individual teaching-artist who acts as a project-leader to design and manage a series of community-relevant workshops culminating in a free public presentation,” said Danielle Brazell, DCA’s General Manager. “DCA also announces a new and revised City of Los Angeles Individual Master Artist Project Grant Program (COLA-IMAP) giving independent avant-garde artists the opportunity to create new works to be premiered by the City of Los Angeles in one or more group presentations.”
Applicants to this program should be mid-career master artists with a professional history of solo works. Master artists who work in groups, engage communities in their practice/projects, or make site specific work should apply to the NEAR program rather than COLA-IMAP which aims to support solo artists. Master artists who maintain both a solo studio-practice as well as a group-practice may apply to both NEAR and COLA-IMAP with category-specific proposals.
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NEAR GRANT PROGRAM
NEAR supports freelance teaching-artists, social-activation artists, and social practice artists in providing community-based, participatory projects in self-selected non-arts venues within the City of Los Angeles. Competitive NEAR projects will gather, connect, and inspire participants and audiences who have little exposure to the proposed type of cultural opportunity. NEAR residencies can be five sessions ending in one public presentation or eleven sessions ending in one public presentation. The majority will take place within non-art nonprofit agencies, although projects in non-arts, for-profit business can also be eligible if these partner/host venues are appropriate and accessible to the general community. NEAR applicants that propose 11 workshops as the ideal duration for their community engagement, should also be prepared to scale-back to 5 workshops (DCA staff will notify NEAR applicants next May about whether the City budget provided for either a $12,000 or $6,000 contract).
For Fiscal Year 2022-23, DCA will continue to support NEAR projects in all districts of the City of Los Angeles. Returning applicants can expect the NEAR program concept, funding structure, and application requirements to remain the same from what was previously referred to as the Artist in Residence Grant Program (AIR).
NEAR Eligibility
- For a NEAR residency – applicant teaching-artists (or collaborative duos/teams/ensembles under the leadership of a single applicant) must be freelance entrepreneurs with community-based practices that have been largely self-developed and remain primarily self-directed;
- NEAR applicants will propose a residency involving a relationship with one (1) non-arts host organization, to take place at the same host organization’s location (or online if safer); and
- Propose feasible projects that can be consistently attended by approximately 20 individuals.
CO-OP GRANT PROGRAM
New for this cycle is DCA’s invitation for CO-OP projects in all of the city’s council districts, with a special emphasis on expanding the projects which DCA supported with NEA funding in social justice organizations based in the federally registered South LA Promise Zone (Council Districts 8, 9, 10, and 15, south of the 10 freeway and north of 228th Street). In contrast to NEAR projects, a CO-OP proposal should be submitted by a nonprofit social justice organization who seeks to employ a freelance teaching artist, or by a nonprofit arts organization who seeks to expand an already-employed teaching-artist’s responsibilities to serve a social justice organization.
CO-OP will support collaborations between any nonprofit social justice organization and a specific teaching-artist (a freelance artist or an artist already working within a nonprofit arts organization in the same community as the social justice organization). In some cases, a third partner, acting as a host site for the project may also be named. In the case of a freelance artist being enrolled to lead a new project at a social justice organization, the nonprofit social justice organization should be the applicant. In the case of a social justice nonprofit and a lead artist from an arts nonprofit working together on a new partnership, either nonprofit can be the applicant (depending on which organization will act as employer of the teaching-artist).
Eligible collaborative-projects should be: 1) new or launched within the past four years, 2) free or low cost for participants, and 3) culminate in at least one free public presentation that will be accessible to the general community (both in-person and on-line presentations are eligible conclusions for a CO-OP grant). CO-OP residences should be 11 sessions ending in one public presentation. CO-OP residencies are funded at $15,000 with $12,000 allocated for artist payment and $3,000 allocated for the social justice organization’s administrative expenses. Proposals for CO-OP that are given a “fundable score” of higher than 75 out of 100 points, but unable to be fully funded at $15,000, may be converted to a NEAR project of 5 workshops and one culminating event with a budget of $6,000 (DCA staff will notify CO-OP applicants next May about whether they will be provided with either a $15,000 or $6,000 contract).
Depending upon its budget for Fiscal Year 2022-23, DCA aims to support approximately 15 to 22 residences at either $6,000 or $12,000 (ideally one for each of the city’s 15 Council districts) and an additional 10 to 15 CO-OP residencies at $15,000 each.
DCA defines a social justice organization as any social service nonprofit organization that has a board-approved and publically printed/repeated mission statement that names a primary “cause for equality” (which can be: cultural, economic, environmental, immigration, healthcare, or housing based); as well as a history of both advocacy to rebalance public policies, and community-based programs to address the same historic/current inequity. Religious, political and legal nonprofits are not eligible under this definition. Likewise, nonprofits that are statewide, national, or international in scale are not eligible at this time, because the pilot years of both the NEAR and CO-OP categories are aimed at local neighborhood and community impact. Arts-based nonprofits should apply directly to DCA’s Cultural Grant Program category each August and should not be the primary applicant of a CO-OP proposal (although arts organizations in LA County may partner by lending an employee with expertise to collaborate with a social justice organization-applicant headquartered in the City of Los Angeles).
CO-OP Eligibility
- For a CO-OP residency, DCA encourages the social justice organization submitting the application to provide a residency for the teaching-artist named in the proposal. If the teaching artist is an employee (part-time or seasonal) of a local nonprofit arts organization, then either nonprofit can be the primary applicant. In either case, the workshops led by the artist should employ methodologies the artist has mastered to launch or sustain a partnership that benefits the 20 (or more) clients gathered and enrolled by the social justice organization;
- All applicants (whether individual or nonprofit must either reside in, or be headquartered in, Los Angeles County – and all proposed projects must take place and culminate within the City of LA; and
- Teaching artists should demonstrate through their resume(s) at least 2 years of experience instructing participants in the proposed artistic discipline within projects at non-arts venues, public schools, parks, libraries, and/or similar community centers.
Additional Information on NEAR and CO-OP Grant Programs
Both NEAR and CO-OP grants will support multi-week interactive projects to take place between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, that aim to stimulate: community dialogue, life-long learning opportunities for the public, and the availability of interesting free or low-cost creative activities that occur outside of traditional arts agencies and venues. Applicants should have workshop sessions that can be consistently attended by no less than 20 individuals, and feature one public culminating event that can engage no less than 40 participants. To this end, NEAR applicants should seek to secure a non-arts host agency and estimate no less than six workshop-sessions (five workshops and one public culminating event). If necessary, for space consideration, CO-OP applicants should secure a third partner, acting as a host site for the project.
NEAR and CO-OP Program Workshops
A series of online webinar workshops will be available in early to mid-October. Webinar space is limited to 30 participants per webinar, and RSVPs are required at least two business days in advance.
Workshops/webinars link: https://dcaredesign.org/air/workshops/
NEAR and CO-OP Applications Timeline
- Deadline to apply is November 5, 2021.
- Grant activity/projects will take place between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023.
- May/June 2021: Applicants will receive notification of results.
NEAR and CO-OP Guidelines and Application
For full program information, please review the program guidelines available at: https://dcaredesign.org/air/. After you have reviewed the guidelines, please proceed to prepare and submit an application at: https://dca-la.smapply.org/.
CITY OF LOS ANGELES INDIVIDUAL MASTER ARTIST PROJECT GRANT PROGRAM (COLA-IMAP)
The City of Los Angeles Individual Master Artist Project Grant Program (COLA-IMAP) gives accomplished artists the opportunity to create a new piece or body of work with the freedom to re-focus on themselves and their core impulses. The COLA-IMAP grant category honors a spectrum of the City’s avant-garde artists who:
- Are dedicated to an ongoing body of excellent work.
- Represent a relevant progression through their pieces or series over the past 15 years (or 8 years for a dancer-choreographer).
- Exemplify a generation of core ideas in their field.
- Are respected by their peers and are role models for other artists because of their distinguished record.
Approximately 6 to 12 COLA-IMAP $10,000 grant-contracts will be offered for designers/visual artists (including architects, graphic designers, and product designers including fashion designers), literary artists (poets or fiction writers) and performing artists (including choreographers who wish to make and perform individual dance works, musicians who wish to compose and perform individual music works, and multi-disciplinary theater artists who wish to invent and perform solo works).
DCA will organize an online and/or printed catalog to promote the entire set of COLA-IMAP grantees as “creative treasures” and document the group as one cross-section of the exciting Los Angeles art scene. DCA and community partners will also attempt to showcase a curated selection of each master-artist’s new work in either a gallery exhibition or performing arts showcase.
COLA-IMAP Eligibility
Competitive applicants are:
- Individual artists or independent duos, who are professional masters of self-evolved ideas (not curators, presenters, or interpreters of other artists’ works, and not artists who have primarily built their credentials within collaborative groups or within social practices – group-process artists are only eligible to apply in DCA’s NEAR category since COLA is not a category for group-projects).
- Current residents of Los Angeles County who demonstrate on their resumes that they either live in the City of Los Angeles or have at least a 3-year history of presenting work in the City of Los Angeles.
- Professionals who illustrate on their resume at least 15 years (8 years for choreographer-dancers) of a progressive, ongoing exhibition, publication, or performance record. This may include post-secondary student presentations and does not need to be 15 (or 8) consecutive years.
COLA-IMAP Workshops
A series of online webinar workshops will be available through early October. Webinar space is limited to 30 participants per webinar and RSVPs are required at least two business days in advance.
Workshops/webinars link: https://dcaredesign.org/cola/workshop-schedule/
COLA-IMAP Application Timeline
- Deadline to apply is November 5, 2021.
- Grant activity/projects will take place between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023.
- June/July 2022: Applicants will receive notification of results.
COLA-IMAP Guidelines and Application
For full program information, please review the program guidelines available at: https://dcaredesign.org/cola/. After you have reviewed the guidelines, please proceed to prepare and submit an application at: https://dca-la.smapply.org/.
For more information, please visit culturela.org or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/culturela, Instagram @culture_la, and Twitter @culture_la.
source: Emma Haber – ehprgroup.com
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