FOR RELEASE April 18, 2022
Media Contact
Stephanie Cunningham
Executive Director, Museum Hue
info@museumhue.com
NYSCA AWARDS $500,000, MELLON FOUNDATION AWARDS $200,000, FORD FOUNDATION AWARDS $160,000, NEA AWARDS $150,000
New York, NY (April 18, 2022)—Today, Museum Hue announced that the organization has been awarded more than $1 million in funding to expand and advance its work providing visibility, tools, resources, and support to arts entities founded and led by Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and all People of Color (POC) across New York City and New York State.
New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) awarded Museum Hue $500,000 to support the development of HueArts NYS which will be the only dynamic, data-driven online resource spotlighting POC-founded and led arts entities of all scales and sizes across New York State. It is inspired by HueArts NYC, the only New York City-based effort to bring greater cultural equity, visibility, and support to arts entities across the five boroughs. HueArts NYC will be used as a model for the forthcoming statewide project.
Launched in February 2022 by Museum Hue in partnership with The Laundromat Project and Hester Street, HueArts NYC provides city agencies, policy makers, philanthropists, peer organizations, arts enthusiasts, and the general public with robust information about Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and all People of Color founded and led arts entities across New York City.
HueArts NYS will broaden Museum Hue’s efforts to ensure that these arts entities are not overlooked or left behind, particularly as the state continues to recover from impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative will seek to strengthen New York’s arts ecosystem as a community and will follow a similar criteria as HueArts NYC in featuring critical information about and advocating for arts entities across New York State’s counties. Entities included in HueArts NYS must be founded and led by Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and other People of Color; they must be presenting, performing, or producing arts entities whose missions are to provide consistent public-facing arts programming and events; and must be located within New York State. The NYSCA award will be used to pay for staff, partners, advisors, and development of the project.
“I am looking forward to collaborating with arts entities across all of New York State to help present a fuller picture of the state’s artistic activities,” said Stephanie Cunningham, Executive Director of Museum Hue. “The availability of comprehensive data on NY state’s Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and all People of Color’s arts entities will help us address disparities in representation and funding. This initiative will gather critical information about their vast creative practices and pedagogy, and will use the power of data to celebrate New York’s bolstering arts landscape. HueArts NYS will increase visibility of the wide ranging scale of artistic mediums and production across our state, all of which will be made freely available to each organization for their own advocacy and to the public.”
“NYSCA supports local artists and non-profits by administering vital funding to regrant partners across all regions of our great state,” Mara Manus, NYSCA Executive Director, said. “Our Fiscal Year 2022 strategic goals prioritize expanding eligibility and increasing access for the full and richly diverse ecosystem of artists and arts organizations of New York. We are proud to support Museum Hue with a grant to build capacity for the statewide HueArts NYS platform.”
Awards from Ford Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts will support the expansion of Museum Hue which includes hiring staff as well as developing programs that centers POC-led arts entities. Through HueArts, the organization will also offer guided experiences and professional development and capacity-building support, and will help to strengthen the unique ways Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and all People of Color’s arts entities serve their communities, including providing community-centered approaches, as well as making meaningful, culturally-relevant connections between their constituencies and their lived-experiences. HueArts programming will reflect the practices and pedagogy of these arts entities, which often counter historical omissions, misconceptions, and problematic depictions of their communities by showcasing cultural contributions and vast artistic mediums.
“We are proud to support HueArts and Museum Hue to expand access to resources for arts and cultural organizations,” said Margaret Morton, Director of Creativity and Free Expression at the Ford Foundation. “Artists and creatives are the backbone of New York’s culture and economy and it is critical that support for the arts reflects the diversity of people and culture across New York.”
“Our nation’s arts sector has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan funding will help arts organizations, such as Museum Hue, rebuild.” Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, Chair of the NEA, said. “The arts are crucial in helping America’s communities heal, unite, and inspire, as well as essential to our nation’s economic recovery.”
HueArts NYS is scheduled to launch in early 2023. HueArts NYC programming is slated to begin in mid-late 2022. For more information visit hueartsnyc.org.
About Museum Hue
Museum Hue is dedicated to uplifting Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and all People of Color in the arts field by creating pathways for greater recognition and representation. We have cultivated a community and learning network across the United States. Museum Hue provides tools and resources that centers creatives and cultural producers of color. In January 2020, Museum Hue launched Hue Museums, the first-ever national map & directory of museums created by and centering Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color across the nation. Museum Hue also maintains the HueArts NYC platform which was completed in January 2022. For more information on Museum Hue, please visit www.museumhue.com, and follow Museum Hue’s Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram @MuseumHue.
About New York State Council on the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts preserves and advances the arts and culture that make New York State an exceptional place to live, work and visit. The council upholds the right of all New Yorkers to experience the vital contributions the arts make to our communities, education, economic development, and quality of life. Through its core grantmaking activity, the Council on the Arts will have awarded more than $100 million in FY2022. NYSCA’s statewide grants and regrants program supports the visual, literary, media and performing arts and includes dedicated support for arts education and underserved communities. The Council on the Arts further advances New York’s creative culture by convening leaders in the field and providing organizational and professional development opportunities and informational resources. Created by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1960 and continued with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the council is an agency that is part of the Executive Branch.
About National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation. The American Rescue Plan (ARP) was signed into law in March 2021 when the NEA was provided $135 million for the arts sector. The funding for organizations is the third installment providing more than $57.7 million for arts organizations. In April 2021, the NEA announced $52 million (40 percent) in ARP funding would be allocated to 62 state, jurisdictional, and regional arts organizations for regranting through their respective programs. The second installment in November 2021 allocated $20.2 million to 66 local arts agencies for subgranting to local artists and art organizations.
About Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization with assets currently valued at $16 billion. For more than 85 years it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
About Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and we believe that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. As the largest supporter of the arts and humanities in the US, through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. To this end, our core programs support exemplary and inspiring institutions of higher education and culture.