Catalyst for Change Fellowship
Supporting US and Puerto Rico-based Latinx artists in the advancement of racial justice through community-centered, artistic solutions.
Meet our Year 2 cohort.
For the 2023 Catalyst for Change fellowship, six artists representing diverse artistic disciplines were selected for their artistic work on projects addressing systems of injustice within their own communities. The projects are informed by the artist’s engagement in community-led research, which will support the cultivation of equitable, community-level outcomes that advance racial justice.
For the 2023 Catalyst for Change program, NALAC collaborated with Southwest Folklife Alliance to provide additional support for artists through their expertise in cultural strategy, community-engaged artistic practice, and deep racial and social justice work.
Overview.
The Catalyst for Change (CFC) Fellowship focuses on radical imagination as a key component of pursuing racial justice. The award is intended to catalyze community-based and artist produced visions for creative solutions to injustices.
With major support from the Surdna Foundation, NALAC is supporting Latinx artists and culture workers with the potential to utilize collaborative, community informed process, combined with their artistic practice t o increase civic engagement/activism, thereby creating systemic change through artistic interventions.
As a CFC Fellow, artists commit to engaging and using:
- Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a methodology to collaboratively work towards systemic change through relationship building, data gathering/collection, and analysis with members in their communities, and
- Develop an artistic project which creates the conditions required to disrupt systems of oppression.
Driving Values & Definitions.
Equity – the fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement for all people that also identifies and eliminates barriers that have limited the full participation or inclusion of some groups. Addressing issues of equity requires an understanding of the root causes of oppression and disparities within our society.
Community – a group of people who are connected by geographic place, identify with historical or
ethnic traditions, beliefs or spirit. This definition is provided by our partners at Alternate ROOTS.
Racial justice is the systematic fair treatment of people of all races, with equitable outcomes for all. This definition is sourced from the article “Origin of the Idea of Race” by Audrey Smedley.
Radical – the term radical inherits its most powerful meaning from the Latin radix or “root.” For the purposes of this grant, we believe that radical imagination of new solutions or approaches are informed by the deeply rooted tensions, contradictions, power imbalances and forms of oppression and exploitation that exist in our society, politics, economy and culture.
Read the Surdna Foundation’s original press release here. https://surdna.org…
