Applying for the Creative Capital Award as a Socially-Engaged Artist

Learn how artists can apply for the Creative Capital Award which provides $50,000 in individual project funding, and additional career development services—all dedicated to supporting artists complete their innovative project ideas. The application, opening February 2021, is free and open to artists working in all disciplines across the country.

Creative Capital staff will present an overview of the organization and answer questions about the application process, the type of work they support, and how to apply. This online session is free.

Creative Capital Awardee Sharon Bridgforth and Ryan Dennis, Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange at the Mississippi Museum of Art, will join us to share their insights about how to apply for a Creative Capital Award as socially-engaged artists.

The event will be recorded and available to watch after it airs. Artists will be able to submit questions live to the panelists.

ASL interpretation and live-captioning will be provided for this event.

Check out Creative Capital’s website for more information about the application and the Creative Capital Award.

BIOS

A Doris Duke Performing Artist, Sharon Bridgforth is a writer that creates ritual/jazz theatre. A 2020-2023 Playwrights’ Center Core Member, Sharon has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network. A New Dramatists alumnae, Sharon has served as a dramaturg for the Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative’s Choreographic Fellowship program and has been in residence with: Brown University’s MFA Playwriting Program; University of Iowa’s MFA Playwrights Program; The Theatre School at DePaul University; allgo, A Texas Statewide QPOC Organization; and The Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Widely published, Sharon is Executive Producer and Host of the Who Yo People Is podcast series. More at: sharonbridgforth.com.

Ryan N. Dennis is the chief curator and artistic director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Ryan previously served as the Curator and Programs Director at Project Row Houses where her work focused on African American contemporary art with a particular emphasis on socially engaged practices, site-specific projects, and public interventions. During her eight years at Project Row Houses, she organized and co-organized ten Rounds of PRH group exhibitions with local, national, and international artists. Her writings have appeared in catalogs and journals, including Prospect.3 Notes for Now (2014), Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Studio magazine. She has most recently edited Collective Creative Actions: Project Row Houses at 25 and contributed to the first monograph of artist Autumn Knight titled, In Rehearsal: Autumn Knight, published by the Krannert Art Museum. Dennis has been a visiting lecturer and critic at a number of art schools and art institutions throughout the country and has taught courses on community-based practices and contemporary art at the University of Houston.

Image: Performance still from Sharon Bridgforth’s Creative Capital Project, dat Black Mermaid Man Lady.