Humanities New York is delighted to announce Action Grant funding for 21 organizations across New York State.
Action Grants award $6500 to $10,000 to non-profits to bring to life programs that promote the exchange of knowledge, skills, stories, and ideas on themes endemic and important to their local communities.
“Each of these projects creates space for dialogue, critical thinking and reflection,” said Joe Murphy, Director of Grants. In this way, they “connect New York-based audiences more deeply to the communities in which they live.”
Among the projects awarded, prominent themes include the African Diaspora in New York, Indigenous history and culture, and environmentalism. In Newburgh, Safe Harbors of the Hudson will lead an initiative to design a monument to the deceased removed from the “Colored Burial Ground” beneath the city’s courthouse. In the Bronx, Women’s Housing & Economic Development Corporation will examine the roots and fruits of West and Central African influences on Afro-Latin culture.
The Iroquois Museum in Mohawk Valley will put its funding towards exhibitions and programming highlighting Iroquois contributions in underrepresented areas, such as circus arts and photojournalism. In the North Country, museum and architectural preservation society Historic Saranac Lake is planning an exhibition dedicated to Indigenous culture in the region, and Talking Rivers is preparing to host a series of virtual symposia to contemplate new approaches to the concept of environmental stewardship.
Lastly, the number of proposals related to the making and screening of films is noteworthy. From conversations at New York City’s Film Forum to Futuro Media Group’s production of a short documentary on Augusta Savage, grantees demonstrated their faith in the art form as a tool for collaborative sense-making.
Read on to explore the full list of projects.
Capital Region
New York Folklore Society
Along the River
Project Director: Anne Rappaport
Project Summary: Along the River connects residents and visitors to their watersheds, marking community place names and indigenous cultural heritage through “blueway” markers and through guides to watershed places delivered both in print and virtually.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
The Center for Photography at Woodstock
The Scrapbook Canon: Piecing Together A Post-Industrial People’s History
Project Director: Brian Wallis
Project Summary: CPW will host scrapbooking workshops, an exhibition, and moderated discussion with a goal to support youth in a post-industrial community as they explore creative personal narrative as a pathway to education, employment, and social equity.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Hudson Area Library
The Black Legacy Association of Columbia County Collection Exhibition & Community Interactions
Project Director: Brenda Shufelt
Project Summary: An exhibition with community interactions of the Black Legacy Association of Columbia County Oral History Project collection, which was gathered in the 1980s, donated to the Hudson Area Library and digitized, archived, and placed online in 2022.
Amount Awarded: $9,300
Long Island
Walt Whitman Birthplace Association
Whitman’s Long Island Environment – Then & Now
Project Director: Mark Nuccio
Project Summary: Our five-part Series compares Whitman’s poetic celebrations of his native Long Island environment with the musical, artistic, poetic, and scientific commentaries of the same environments two hundred years later.
Amount Awarded: $6,500
The Whaling Museum and Education Center
Special Exhibition: Monsters & Mermaids
Project Director: Nomi Dayan
Project Summary: A 2-year special exhibition project exploring sea-inspired myths and legends and their contemporary connections today.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Mid-Hudson
Safe Harbors of the Hudson
From the Ground UP
Project Director: Alison McNulty
Project Summary: “From the Ground UP” is an artist-led convention of local stakeholders to imagine, render and present collaboratively designed concepts for a memorial to those disinterred from Newburgh’s “Colored Burial Ground” currently beneath the City Courthouse.
Amount Awarded: $9,554
Mohawk Valley
Iroquois Museum
Outside the Box
Project Director: Colette Lemmon
Project Summary: Exhibition and related programming showcases Iroquois who have chosen fields of expression such as photojournalism, circus arts, contemporary dance, claymation, and lutherie, where the presence of Native artists is both untraditional and unexpected.
Amount Awarded: $7,145
New York City
The Jewish Museum
Movies That Matter: Film Screenings for Schools
Project Director: Jamie Auriemma
Project Summary: Movies That Matter is a free documentary-screening program that engages middle and high school students and their teachers with social justice issues; each screening is followed by a Q&A discussion with the film’s director, subject, or topic expert.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
African Film Festival
AFF’s Annual Outdoor Summer Series Production
Project Director: Dara Ojugbele
Project Summary: Funds for outdoor screening equipment will allow AFF to consistently and effectively present our free annual summer series, bringing African and diaspora film and culture to NYC neighborhoods, especially to those where arts resources are scarce.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Film Forum
Film Forum Conversation Series
Project Director: Sonya Chung
Project Summary: Film Forum’s Conversation Series brings filmmakers, writers, scholars, and other luminaries in the arts and humanities to our theaters for talks and Q&As. These conversations enhance the power of a great film to challenge, nourish, and inspire.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Downtown Community Television Center
Chinatown: At the Margins and the Center
Project Director: Dara Messinger
Project Summary: Chinatown: At the Margins and the Center is a screening series centered on community resistance and resilience in the face of inextricably linked gentrification, displacement and incarceration in New York City’s Chinatown.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Fort Greene Park Conservancy
Field Guide to the Cultural and Ecological Landscapes of Fort Greene Park
Project Director: Mia Rubin
Project Summary: To create a field guide to Fort Greene Park – with companion programming – featuring the work of local artists, storytellers, and students, highlighting ecologically and culturally significant features of the park.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Waterwell Productions
Do Not Tell Them I Am a Prince by Edafe Okporo
Project Director: Lee Sunday Evans
Project Summary: Performances of a play by Asylee Edafe Okporo in Albany, Westchester and NYC to invite dialogue about the treatment of immigrants, including recent asylum seekers and longtime residents- part of efforts to build public pressure to end ICE detention.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Futuro Media Group
Searching for Augusta Savage
Project Director: Charlotte Mangin
Project Summary: “Searching for Augusta Savage” (working title) is a 22-minute documentary film for PBS/American Masters about Harlem Renaissance sculptor and art educator Augusta Savage (1892-1962), the first Black woman to open an art gallery in the U.S.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Women’s Housing & Economic Development Corporation
Congo Roots in the Diaspora- Going Further
Project Director: Elena Martinez
Project Summary: Congo Roots in the Diaspora-Going Further is a three-part series that will explore the West and Central African influences on Afro-Latin culture and traditions prevalent in New York City and beyond.
Amount Awarded: $9,944
Museum of the Moving Image
Program X: Cultural Activism and Media
Project Director: Tiffany Joy Butler
Project Summary: Program X: Cultural Activism and Media, a program created by and for immigrants, will feature a documentary film workshop and short film showcase reflecting on culture, media representation and the historical significance of telling one’s story.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
North Country
Historic Saranac Lake
Exhibit Development: Indigenous History in the Saranac Lake Region
Project Director: Amy Catania
Project Summary: Historic Saranac Lake will collaborate with David Kanietakeron Fadden of the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center to create a new exhibit at Historic Saranac Lake that introduces visitors to Indigenous history in the Saranac Lake region.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Talking Rivers
We are all in this Together: Standing up for the Guardians of the Natural World
Project Director: Blake Lavia
Project Summary: In a series of three virtual events, humanities scholars and environmental activists will join to discuss how we can expand the conception of environmental stewardship beyond the human, and unravel the historical roots of the climate crisis.
Amount Awarded: $9,975
Western New York
Buffalo String Works
Burmese Composer in Residence Project
Project Director: Andrew Borkowski
Project Summary: Burmese Composer Wai Hin, working alongside students and families, will produce a special 10-year anniversary commission piece, celebrating one decade of igniting personal and community leadership through accessible, youth-centered music education.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Just Buffalo Literary Center
The Civil Writes Project
Project Director: Barbara Cole
Project Summary: The 2024 Civil Writes Project—headlined by Kiese Laymon—will celebrate Black literary innovation, examine inequities, and inspire audiences to explore their own humanity as they read, discuss, and connect with his award-winning memoir, Heavy.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Buffalo Arts Studio
1,849 Millas: Al otro lado del charco, A Diaspora Journey
Project Director: Shirley Verrico
Project Summary: 1,849 Millas: Al otro lado del charco, A Diaspora Journey is an exhibition, performance, discussion, and workshop series highlighting African and Indigenous cultural expressions from Puerto Rico, including bomba and the vejigante masks of Loíza.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
