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Rockefeller Foundation Gives $2.7 Million to Support Local New York City Artists Announces 2009 NYC Cultural Innovation Fund Competition Winners

 

Today the Rockefeller Foundation’s President Dr. Judith Rodin announced the 18 winners of the Foundation’s 2009 New York City Cultural Innovation Fund competition – and with it a $2.7 million grant to support local New York City art and artists. Each of these 18 New York City-based organizations will receive a two-year grant of up to $250,000, underscoring the Foundation’s commitment to creative expression and innovation, and the impact and influence creativity has towards social progress.

“The Rockefeller Foundation is pleased to continue our support of art and creativity right here in our home town of New York City,” said Dr. Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation. “In today’s economy, our artists and communities need support to continue to build an innovative creative sector that provokes us to react, question, and learn.”

Many of this year’s winners—selected from more than 500 diverse projects—focus on innovative survival strategies for the arts during a time of severe economic decline. Fresh business models, imaginative prototypes for public/private partnerships, entrepreneurial approaches to capital generation, artist peer loan programs, and new spins on marketing, especially to rapidly growing Latino communities, are strong themes among the winning entries.

These projects are infused with innovation in art itself as well—from the coupling of theater with dance, architecture with ballet, and science with art to the use of 3D urban design and social networking technology.

Started in 2007, the New York City Cultural Innovation Fund awards two-year grants, ranging from $50,000 to $250,000, for groundbreaking initiatives that enrich the City’s cultural life and help to ensure the continued economic strength and diversity of the City’s creative sector.

Three prominent leaders from the fields of innovation and the arts served as advisors to Fund including, Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator, Museum of art & Design and former President of the Studio Museum in Harlem; David Thorpe, Director of Innovation, Institute for State effectiveness; and Andrew Zolli, Founder, Z + Partners and Curator, annual Pop!Tech Conference.

The New York City Cultural Innovation Fund builds on the Rockefeller Foundation’s tradition of support for the arts. The Foundation supports artists in a variety of fields through its investments in national arts organizations including Creative Capital, United States Artists, and Renew Media. Historically, the Foundation provided major support for the establishment of several of New York City’s landmark cultural institutions, including Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

The Rockefeller Foundation fosters innovative solutions to many of the world's most pressing challenges, affirming its mission, since 1913, to “promote the well-being” of humanity. Today, the Foundation works to ensure that more people can tap into the benefits of globalization while strengthening resilience to risks. Foundation initiatives include efforts to mobilize an agricultural revolution in sub-Saharan Africa, bolster economic security for American workers, inform equitable, sustainable transportation policies in the United States, ensure access to affordable and high-quality health systems in developing countries, support strategies and services that help vulnerable communities cope with the impacts of climate change, and promote environments in which creativity can flourish.

For more information about the Rockefeller Foundation, or to learn more about applying for an award from the 2010 New York City Cultural Innovation Fund, please visit www.rockfound.org.

 

Recipients of the 2009 Rockefeller Foundation New York City Cultural Innovation Fund Awards

• The Alliance for the Arts, to pioneer open-source Web applications for the New York City cultural community
  
  
• Alliance for Downtown New York, Inc., for a creative arts district prototype that supports permanent artists’ workspaces and commercial growth
  
  
• Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, to develop sustainable business models that enable Off and Off Off Broadway theaters to survive and thrive
  
  
• Asia Society, for a series of debates in which artists, scientists, business leaders, and scholars use ancient forms of dialogue to address contemporary challenges
  
  
• BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn, to inaugurate a creative laboratory and residency linking the visual, media, and performing arts
  
  
• The Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island, to redesign and repurpose the North Shore waterfront as a creative sector incubator
  
  
• Creative Capital, to harvest successful business and NGO capital-generation models for the benefit of artists
  
  
• HERE Arts Center, for an interactive video, blog, and podcast series examining the real-life survival challenges of New York City performing artists
  
  
• Institute for Urban Design, to launch Urban Design Week, an open-air festival celebrating the year’s innovations in architecture and urban design
  
  
• The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc., to use creative arts residencies to support projects combining theater and dance
  
  
• New York City Ballet, for a convergence of architecture and dance through commissioning new ballets for a set designed by architect Santiago Calatrava
  
  
• The New School, for a design and public policy partnership to research, promote, and amplify community-based solutions for sustainability
  
  
• Polytechnic Institute of NYU, for community access to Betaville, an online platform showing proposed urban design and public art projects in 3D on real streets
  
  
• Pregones Theater, to expand Zip Tickets, the VIP discount ticket service for South Bronx, Washington Heights, and East Harlem zip codes
  
  
• Project Enterprise, in partnership with ArtHome, to help artist entrepreneurs build assets and equity through an artist peer loan program
  
  
• Queens Council on the Arts, to design an interactive cell phone cultural map to transform the #7 train into an art express
  
  
• Ringside Inc. (STREB), to spark new dance forms by incorporating extreme action techniques such as high wire and skydiving
  
  
• Teatro Círculo, to grow Latino audiences by training micro-entrepreneurs, from empanada vendors to beauty shop owners, to become sales agents for cultural events