GRANT OPPORTUNITY ($75,000): 2023 JOYCE AWARDS APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN
Awarded annually, the Joyce Awards support the creation of new works by artists of color to foster more culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities. In 2023, The Joyce Foundation will grant six Joyce Awards across visual, performing, and multidisciplinary arts to support new collaborations between artists of color and leading arts, cultural, and community-based organizations in the Great Lakes. Each $75,000 grant enables the creation and presentation of a new work that engages and builds community, with at least $25,000 of each grant awarded directly to the commissioned artist, while the collaborating commissioning organization receives at most $50,000 to use towards compensation of staff time, production costs, materials, participant stipends, and other expenses.
The deadline for pre-registration is September 7, 2022, with Letters of Inquiry due on September 12, 2022 at 11:59pm CDT.
For more details, eligibility criteria and other FAQs, please visit the Joyce Foundation website at [https://www.joycefdn.org/joyce-awards] or email Culture Program Director Mia Khimm at [email protected].
Who can apply?
Applications must be submitted by the commissioning organization, including questions for the artist. Applications must reflect a new collaborative commission between an artist of color and an arts or community-based organization located in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis-St. Paul. The artists can be living and practicing anywhere in the world, provided they are proposing a collaboration with an organization located in one of the above Great Lakes cities. Please see the full Eligibility Criteria & Guidelines and FAQs.
Joyce Award Eligibility
Artists
• Joyce Awards applications may be submitted by artists living and practicing
anywhere in the world, provided that they are proposing a collaboration with an
arts or community organization located in the metropolitan statistical areas of
one of six Great Lakes cities: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis,
Milwaukee, or Minneapolis-St. Paul.
• There is no restriction in regard to art discipline or medium.
• Artists must be commissioned by an unrelated entity – no self-commissions or
commissions by an arts organization or company founded or run by the artist.
Commissioned artists may be related to the commissioning organization, currently
or in the past, in a time-limited capacity, such as a residency, teaching artist, or
board member.
• As Joyce Awards support the commission of new works, an artist’s proposed
project should not have moved past the ideation stage.
• Although works need to be new, collaborations between artists and
commissioning organizations need not be new. Joyce Foundation welcomes
applications from artists and organizations who have worked together before.
• However, artists who have received a Joyce Award in the past are not eligible
to apply again as a commissioned artist. In addition, organizations that have
received a Joyce Award in the past may re-apply if proposing a commission
with an artist who has never received a Joyce Award in the past.
• Hallmarks of past Joyce Award recipients include artists whose work:
• Demonstrates artistic excellence as well as new thinking or approaches
while being firmly grounded in the history and evolution of an art
form and the discourse which surrounds it;
• Is as artistically and intellectually relevant to the current moment and
historical legacies in the place of commission as it is rigorous;
• Engages with and is informed by the stories and concerns of
diverse communities, including communities of color;
• Creates opportunities for community access and learning from the
ideation stage through the culminating production; and
• Will have a culminating and tangible program, product or process.
Arts and Community-based Organizations
• Arts or community-based organizations located in the metropolitan statistical
area (MSA) of one of the six cities where Joyce Awards are made (i.e. Chicago,
Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, or Minneapolis-St. Paul) may submit
an application.
• The most compelling applications have come from organizations that:
• Evidence the capacity to support an artist(s) through the
commission and presentation of an original art work;
• Are most likely to use the proposed project and collaboration with
the prospective artist to build upon and deepen connections with
surrounding communities, existing and potential institutional
partners and local civic leadership;
• Display the ability to harness additional funds as needed to ensure a
project’s completion within a 12- to 18-month timeframe (with projects
beginning no earlier than June 1, 2023); and
• Can design and execute a robust community learning, engagement
plan, and audience development strategy that will ensure the
community’s awareness of and access to the project from origination
through completion.
• Demonstrate a commitment to advancing racial equity in its work.