A Blade of Grass, the American organisation dedicated to socially engaged art, has said it will not be able to continue with its fellowship programme and, with its budget more than halved in the economic slowdown, will make staff redundant.
Launched in 2014, the fellowship provided artists and artist collectives with a $20,000 honorarium to realise community-based or politically-minded projects.
Now however executive director Deborah Fisher said the organisation will end the financial year with less than a year in operating costs left in its reserves and is having to cut their annual $1 million (£779,000) budget to $450,000. Fisher said as part of the cost-cutting she will take a pay cut.
Seventy percent of the honorarium budget is raised through private support but, Fisher says, ‘Covid stopped this high-touch community building in its tracks’. Going forward, the organisation will act more as a commissioner of socially engaged projects, programmes and artist-led research and content, which, by focusing and fundraising for one project at a time, Fisher hopes will be more attractive to patronage.
‘These decisions were not arrived at lightly. In particular, it pains me to subject staff members who are close to my heart to the stress and precarity of losing employment. And it hurts the organization to lose staff members who do such great work. These cuts are being made out of necessity. We have a responsibility to continue to serve our mission to support and amplify the work of socially engaged artists.’
‘Over the coming year, I will be focused on two tasks. First, I will be taking time to listen to former Fellows, other artists who are enacting social change, and other members of our community about what they need from us, and art institutions more generally, right now.’
Alfredo Salazar-Caro was made the inaugural, and now it would seem final, dedicated Fellow for POC Emerging Artists in New York City for 2020; alongside funding for Cannupa Hanska Luger; a collective including Alex Hare, Zhailon Levingston, and Nehemiah Luckett; the Hidden Voices collective; Taja Lindley; the Papel Machete collective; Tornillo: The Occupation Coalition, and Rosalind McGary.
Under normal circumstances funds were awarded for specific projects, but this time, although the artists applied with specific plans, the organisation said its seven fellows were free to use the money on essential living costs if necessary.
