A Blade of Grass Inaugurates $75,000 Fellowship Program
150Feb. 12, 2025
New York-based arts nonprofitA Blade of Grass(ABoG) has announced the launch of a $75,000 fellowship initiative in support of socially engaged art. Titled In Fellowship, the program will provide three individual artist groups with $25,000 each and will foster connections between the awardees, who will additionally receive funding for professional services. ABoG, which from 2014 to 2020 offered eight annual artist grants of $20,000,restructuredduring the Covid-19 crisis and last year inaugurated a micro-grant program,Field Funds, which supplied fifty artists with $500 apiece. With this new initiative, the organization hopes to promote collaboration among socially engaged practitioners, and to magnify the impact of their work.
“Our team at A Blade of Grass is proud to introduce ‘In Fellowship,’ and look forward to being in conversation with these three groups over the span of this inaugural year,” said Lu Zhang, ABoG’s executive director, in a statement. “We’re reimagining our fellowship program as a platform for meaningful support and collective exchange. ‘In Fellowship’ reflects our commitment to not only providing resources to socially engaged artists and practitioners, but also learning from and with groups exploring interconnectedness and shared power.”
ABoG has said that details regarding the application process for the program will be available in the fall. In the meantime, it has announced the first cohort of recipients. These are Great Leap, a long-running Los Angeles-based multicultural arts organization that works to strengthen relationships among people of diverse cultures and faiths, and aims to transform environmental living standards; Wild Path Collective, an intergenerational, multicultural, and interfaith community and commons that promotes a relationship between marginalized and repressed populations—including people of color, women, queer folks, trans individuals, and the economically disadvantaged—and the land; and What Would an HIV Doula Do?, a community-based group offerng support, care, and advocacy for those affected by HIV/AIDS.
“Each group in our cohort is at a unique juncture in this moment,” said ABoG program director Lee Heinemann in a statement. “As we explore the possibilities of [ABoG’s] new shape, we are excited to learn with others who are undertaking challenging and inspiring collective work.”