Our Town Grant
In 2017, The Downtown Albuquerque Arts & Cultural District collaborated with the City of Albuquerque’s Public Art Department and 10 community partners on an Our Town grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts. Our proposal was successful, and our partners received $100,000 to provide free or low-cost public arts programming around Downtown this year. Learn more about what our partners are doing and how you can be a part of it below!
516 ARTS will host an exhibit looking at challenges of place, The US-Mexico Border: Place Imagination, and Possibility, from the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. Addressing issues related to emigration, immigration, and personal identity, it will also feature local artists exploring the same issues. Outreach activities will engage schools with at-risk student bodies (February – April 2018).
Central Features will create an artist laureate program, the Living Albuquerque Artist Program. The selected visual or performing artist will hold a two-year position to connect arts and livability in Albuquerque while addressing environmental issues, cultural awareness/preservation, or entrepreneurship (through Summer 2018).
Creative Startups will launch a bimonthly artist-as-mentors lecture series, Creative Conversations, connecting emerging artists with professional working artists (April – December 2018).
Friends of the Orphan Signs will transform an orphaned Route 66 sign in the heart of downtown into a work of public art (Summer 2018).
FUSION Theatre Company will present 108 live performances throughout downtown, including 50 weekly Latin dance workshops and social gatherings, 20 family-oriented art-making parties, and 20 public performances of original commedia dell arte (October 2017 – July 2018).
Sanitary Tortilla Factory will host two residencies focused on forms of sculptural production, incorporating waste stream utilization and social practice (October2017 – May 2018).
Tricklock Company will create a theatre program with women from a downtown transitional living and support services organization and will conduct interactive outreach to underserved neighborhoods as part of Tricklock’s 18th Revolutions International Theatre Festival, using a variety of downtown performance and exhibit spaces (mid-January – March 2018).
University of New Mexico will enhance the presence of the College of Fine Arts (CFA) Downtown Studio, which engages student and professional artists in the larger community through student and faculty exhibitions and lectures (October 2017 – July 2018).
Vortex Theatre will present Shakespeare on the Plaza: 16 free performances of Shakespeare plays in four weeks each year on downtown Civic Plaza (early June and July 2018).
Working Classroom will create a mural with youth who have underdeveloped potential, helping them articulate their dreams for the neighborhood while learning new artistic techniques (July 2018).