Chicago Cultural Alliance is pleased to announce to our members and supporters that we were approved for the Illinois Humanities 2020 Community Resilience Grant!
The goal of this grant category is to support organizations in using the humanities to make visible the experiences of residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight stories of community resiliency throughout the state.
The Community Resilience grant presents a significant opportunity which enables the Alliance to work with new tools and materials generated by StoryCorps Chicago, to engage our Members in order to create an oral history archive specifically collecting, documenting, and sharing museum and arts professionals’ first-hand responses to COVID-19 and the ensuing crisis. Working with Amy Tardif at Story Corps, we are able to utilize two specific free community archives methods, including StoryCorps Connect and Virtual.
This program, Arts Resilience Archives, will comprise of an initial collection of 20-30 oral histories spanning a broad range of arts and museum professionals, diverse cultural groups. Freelance editors will edit approximately 4 select interviews for a workshop and listening event in October to share impact and take-away points. The arts community will be able to freely access and contribute to these archives in the future for uses such as building solidarity, networking, and healing, as well as long-term planning and cultivating emergency response preparations.
We are more than excited to have received this grant and for the opportunity to put the Arts Resilience Archives in motion!
For more information about the program, contact Andrew Leith: [email protected]