National Endowment for the Arts Supports Awards $197,500 in Grants

(UNDATED) – The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced awarding of 8 grants totaling $160,000 to Indiana nonprofit arts organizations and cultural programming providers during the first round of grants for the fiscal year 2021.

Additionally, the NEA announced the awarding of two literature fellowships totaling $37,500 to Indiana writers.

“The creativity and resilience of artists and arts organizations across the country have inspired Americans during this challenging year,” said Arts Endowment Acting Chairman Ann Eilers. “These projects represent the vitality and perseverance of arts organizations small and large to overcome significant challenges, transform to new ways of engagement, and forge new relationships that benefit the diverse populations in neighborhoods and cities throughout the United States.”

Indiana grants include:

Big Car Collaborative, Indianapolis, $30,000
To support the creation of new work that will explore connections between Native American culture and early 19th-century Utopian communities founded in southwestern Indiana. 

Heartland Film, Indianapolis, $20,000
To support staff salaries for the Heartland International Film Festival and Indy Shorts International Film Festival. 

Indiana State Symphony Society, Indianapolis, $20,000
To support the Teddy Bear Series, an early childhood education program by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. 

Traditional Arts Indiana, Bloomington, $25,000
To support the Elder Music Project which will identify, document, and record music by Indiana senior traditional musicians to serve as the centerpiece for virtual public programing and include a guide for engaging audiences in senior centers, assisted living facilities, and elder care units.

Landmark Columbus Foundation, Columbus, $25,000
To support design education programs for children, youth, and families as part of the Exhibit Columbus program.

Lotus Education and Arts Foundation, Bloomington, $20,000
To support the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival that features concerts by international musical artists, some offered at no charge. 

University of St. Francis, Fort Wayne, $20,000
To support Hoosiers with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities with weekly online instruction in dance, media arts, music, theater, and visual arts from professional teaching artists. 

Indiana literature fellowships include:

Mitchell Douglas, Creative Writing, Indianapolis, $25,000
To support activities that contribute to Mitchell’s creative development and artistic growth.

Johannes Goransson, Translation Project, South Bend, $12,500
To support the translation from the Swedish of the poetry collection Lonespeech by Ann Jäderlund (b. 1955), whose aesthetics are closely aligned to Emily Dickinson, has published 12 books of poetry and even translated the work of Dickinson into Swedish. This will be the collection’s first appearance in English.