GIA Blog

When he was 23, photographer and filmmaker Tyler Mitchell became the first black photographer to shoot in 2018 the cover of Vogue magazine. (His subject was Beyoncé.) Mitchell’s first solo exhibition, “I Can Make You Feel Good,” on view at Foam in Amsterdam, is for the artist "an affirmation of certain autobiographical aspects of my blackness," as he told The New York Times.

Five dance companies were selected to participate in Momentum, a new three-year initiative from South Arts, to build their capacity regional and national touring. Over the course of the program, according to South Arts, each company will receive professional development, residency opportunities, and touring grants to fund their work.

As part of Women in Reentry, a project of the People’s Paper Co-op, for months, formerly incarcerated women have learned to make paper from their shredded criminal records, coming up with sayings that reflect their experiences behind bars, and then collaborating with artists across the country to turn their words and images into art.

The guide Rural Prosperity through the Arts and Creative Sector: A rural action guide for governors and states tackles how a growing body of research shows that arts-based economic development can help communities to thrive.

A collaboration between the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA),

Judy Heumann, an internationally recognized disability rights leader, joined in 2017 the Ford Foundation for a yearlong fellowship, working with the foundation’s staff to integrate a disability-inclusive perspective across their work. On her own, as a blog post/interview by the Ford Foundation details, she researched the inclusion of disability in film and television.

With the goal of helping underserved communities, R&B singer Khalid launched The Great Khalid Foundation, a music and fine arts organization in his hometown of El Paso, Texas, Rolling Stone reported.

The State Data Infrastructure Project in the Arts, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and Education Commission of the States, released recently "50-State Comparison: Arts Education Data Collection and Reporting," a tool that assesses the capacity of all 50 states and the District of Columbia to aggregate and report on arts education data already housed in statewide education data systems.

The educational initiative 400 Years of Inequality is partnering with the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, a grassroots artist network, for a free Citizen Artist Salon on May 16th. This salon, according to the announcement, would explore place-based creative strategies for truth-telling and collective healing.

Big philanthropy came under scrutiny at the recent Skoll World Forum, where 1,200 people from 81 countries gathered at the University of Oxford, England, according to Forbes.

The International Association of Blacks in Dance (IABD), a Mellon Foundation grantee through its Comprehensive Organizational Health Initiative, is key in "ensuring that a rich legacy of dance in America—and around the world—is preserved and continues to grow," as the foundation writes in its blog.