Congratulations to 27 organizations across the state that have been awarded Action Grants. Grantees—non-profit cultural organizations that carry out Humanities New York’s mission of making the humanities accessible to all—make use of funds through the realization of public programs such as exhibits, panels, and workshops. A big thanks to all those who applied!
Take a look at the full list of the 2024 warm-weather grantees, and watch this space for grantee-hosted events happening near you.
Central New York
Oneida Community Mansion House
Oneida Ltd: More Than a Silverware Company
Project Director: Thomas Guiler
Project Summary: An interactive exhibit that explores the rise and fall of Oneida Ltd. through oral histories and provocative objects to spark dialogue about the role of corporations in the lives of communities.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Everson Museum of Art
Making Art Work: Works Progress Administration Prints (1935 – 1942)
Project Director: Steffi Chappell
Project Summary: An exhibition of Federal Art Project prints exploring the resiliency of the American spirit through the eyes of artists at the height of the Great Depression and the lead-up to the country’s involvement in World War II.
Amount Awarded: $6,500
Finger Lakes
Kitchen Theatre Company
Kitchen Table Talks: Connecting the Arts to Today’s Culture
Project Director: Emily Jackson
Project Summary: This series will feature a diverse range of artists, local community leaders, and academics invited to share their knowledge and insights of current cultural and societal themes as a way to spark important conversations and build community.
Amount Awarded: $6,500
South Central Regional Library Council
The Road to Freedom in South Central New York State
Project Director: Claire Lovell
Project Summary: A traveling exhibit about abolition and the Underground Railroad in South Central New York State, with an accompanying online digital exhibit on NYHeritage.org, an online resource guide built in LibGuides, and webinars featuring regional experts.
Amount Awarded: $7,200
The Plimpton Foundation
The North American Indigenous Songbook
Project Director: Timothy Long
Project Summary: To support the North American Indigenous Songbook, a collection of new musical pieces that seek to amplify the voices of Native, Indigenous, and under-represented composers; descendants of the first inhabitants of North America.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Genesee Valley Council On the Arts
The Redemption Center: Restoring our Relationship with the Environment
Project Director: Glenn McClure
Project Summary: An upbeat chamber opera that explores environmental redemption within the emerging field of Environmental Humanities.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Mid-Hudson
Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
HVSF’s BAKE-OFF Community Playwriting Series
Project Director: Sean McNall
Project Summary: In 2024, HVSF will produce our 9th Annual BAKE-OFF Community Playwriting Series in partnership with local libraries, offering our community the invaluable opportunity to participate in collaborative artmaking.
Amount Awarded: $6,500
Putnam History Museum
Deepening Connections: Phase 2 of the PHM’s Indigenous Peoples in Putnam County Exhibition and Programming
Project Director: Cassie Ward
Project Summary: Deepening Connections will expand the PHM’s exhibition “Indigenous Peoples in Putnam County” and its related public & educational programs, & enrich the exhibition’s interpretation of the Wappingers’ contributions around the American Revolution.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
New York City
Parachute Literary Arts
The Coney Island Poetry Map
Project Director: Amanda Deutch
Project Summary: The Coney Island Poetry Map 2024 is a free multi-platform public poetry exhibit featuring original poems by youth ages 5-18, displayed throughout Coney Island’s residential and amusement areas for the general public.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Cayena Press
2024 Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration
Project Director: Raynelda Calderon
Project Summary: The project engages the Hispanic community and the public, honoring Hispanic heritage, promoting culture, and fostering understanding of traditions and contributions in diverse activities.
Amount Awarded: $6,500
Lewis H. Latimer Fund
Black Historic Sites in Conversation
Project Director: Ran Yan
Project Summary: Continuing a virtual talk series in collaboration with different Black heritage sites & cultural centers in the New York Metropolitan Area, about the ongoing work of preserving, interpreting, and celebrating Black history and historical figures.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
The National Jazz Museum in Harlem
Harlem Speaks: Women in Jazz
Project Director: Ryan Maloney
Project Summary: The National Jazz Museum in Harlem will present a free, three-part Harlem Speaks series focused on women in jazz, with notable women in the arts and media interviewing distinguished women jazz musicians before a live audience and for future broadcast.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Notch Theatre Company
Gen U
Project Director: Ashley Teague
Project Summary: Gen U is a performance and community dialogue project that documents, via first-person testimony, the current unionization movement and speaks to this critical moment in America fostering reflection and conversations on labor movements in America.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Poetry Society of America
PSA Seminar and Lecture Series
Project Director: Matt Brogan
Project Summary: The PSA will present 12 seminars on poetics to the general public and will offer two installments of a lecture series featuring world-renowned poet/scholars, presented in the PSA’s storefront space and accessible on our website and social media.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Fund for the City of New York
The Historian & The Activist: Intergenerational Conversations Exploring Cross-Cultural LGBTQ Identities in the Historic New York City Landscape
Project Director: Ken Lustbader
Project Summary: A series of three virtual programs featuring intergenerational conversations between a historian and an activist exploring contemporary cross-cultural LGBTQ identities (Irish, Puerto Rican, Jewish) and historic places in NYC from the 1950s to 2000.
Amount Awarded: $6,740
Friends of Alice Austen House
Archiving Activism: The Lesbian Avengers Speaker Series
Project Director: Victoria Munro
Project Summary: From July to October 2024, The Alice Austen House (AAH) will launch a monthly recorded speaker series exploring the history of lesbian archiving and activism by a key New York organization and its intersection with the Alice Austen House.
Amount Awarded: $6,500
The New York Botanical Garden
NYBG Herbarium + Community Gardens Initiative
Project Director: Lucas Mertehikian
Project Summary: This community-driven project recognizes, preserves, and promotes biocultural diversity in NYC through activities and dialogues on the value of locally-held plant relationships and knowledge to support community-based botanical arts and sciences.
Amount Awarded: $9,996
Mercantile Library Association
The Center for Fiction On America Series
Project Director: Melanie Mcnair
Project Summary: On America offers in-person and virtual author talks and discussions where members of the general public are invited to engage in dialogue with some of the most important and recognizable writers and journalists of our time.
Amount Awarded: $9,996
Triple Canopy
Only the Music Can Speak for the Music
Project Director: Alexander Provan
Project Summary: Only the Music Can Speak for the Music is a series of free workshops, conversations, and performances that consider Black electronic music as a cultural movement and locus of Afrodiasporic expressions and experiences.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Im/migration, American Identity and Ideals
Project Director: Kathryn Lloyd
Project Summary: The Museum will organize an online panel discussion series that invites scholars and practitioners to explore the impact of im/migration over time upon local and national debates on American identity, voting rights, housing, labor, and the economy.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Voices of a People’s History of the United States
The People Speak and Sing! 10th Anniversary
Project Director: Anna Strout
Project Summary: As a special celebration of 10 years in partnership with Lincoln Center, this event spotlights a diverse selection of primary source pieces and powerful music from social movements that have shaped our nation’s past.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Educational Alliance
14Y: Downtown Jewish Culture and Ideas Series
Project Director: Alexis Offen
Project Summary: The 14th Street Y will use its strength as a multifaceted community center and stronghold for arts in lower Manhattan to host a series of humanities-focused conversations centering contemporary, critical dialogues with a nuanced Jewish lens.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
North Country
North Country Childrens Museum
Mohawk Music Interactive
Project Director: Sharon Williams
Project Summary: The Mohawk Music Interactive, developed in partnership with the Native North American Traveling College in Akwesasne, will be hands-on component of the Music & Sound Lab Exhibit for children and families visiting the museum.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
John Brown Lives!
Harriet Tubman and The Beacon of Hope
Project Director: Shawndel Fraser
Project Summary: John Brown Lives! presents a four-part series of free public humanities events to coincide with the installation of artist Wesley Wofford’s 12-foot-tall bronze statue of Harriet Tubman at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site July – September 2024.
Amount Awarded: $9,900
Western New York
Shake on the Lake
Shake on the Lake Summer Tour 2024: Henry V
Project Director: Joshua Rice
Project Summary: Shake on the Lake presents their summer Shakespeare show, HENRY V, touring July 18 to August 4 across Western New York and including discussion groups at each event.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Explore Buffalo
Doors Open Buffalo 2024
Project Director: Suzanne Ernst
Project Summary: Doors Open Buffalo 2024 will bring to life Buffalo’s history and architecture for thousands of visitors who will participate in a day of free public access to approximately 30 historically and architecturally significant downtown buildings.
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Western New York Library Resources Council
Renewed or Ruined? The Urban Renewal Experience in New York State
Project Director: Heidi Zeimer
Project Summary: An online and traveling exhibit that will serve as a base for active community story-gathering, dialogue and discussion from contemporary perspectives around the urban renewal experience in New York.
Amount Awarded: $7,750
