The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation has awarded a total of $777,000 in grants to 60 New York City organizations that are using art as a tool for social justice, social change, and discourse, Art News reports.
In 2015, the Rubin Foundation established its Art and Social Justice initiative, which aims to use “art as a tool for advocacy and creative change, inclusive community engagement, and the promotion of greater civic participation and public discourse.” The grants, varying from $5,000 to $20,000, stem from this initiative. They will be awarded to fund day-to-day operations, programming, and exhibitions.
The foundation has previously funded projects such as Himalayan Art Resources and the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. The Rubins also founded New York’s Rubin Museum of Art in 2004, which shares and exhibits art from Tibet and Himalayan Asia.
Grants will be distributed to a variety of organizations and artist residency programs including Visual AIDS for the Arts, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Disability Dance Works, African Film Festival, Inc., BronxArtSpace, and The Laundromat Project.
In a statement provided to Arts News from Sara Reisman, the foundation’s executive and artistic director, she said, “With so many at-risk communities under pressure, we were compelled to support smaller organizations whose work is responsive to the current political climate, models experimentation, and offers sustained engagement. We also wanted to ensure that high-caliber artistic programming is made available to communities who are not conventionally served by arts philanthropy.”
A full list of recipients can be read here.
