Maine College of Art & Design to Receive $40,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
Funds to support the exhibition Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks & Pathways
Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D) has been selected to receive a $40,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the exhibition Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks & Pathways. The award was included in more than $80 million in grants announced May 9 by NEA Chairman Jane Chu as part of the organization’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2018.
“The variety and quality of these projects speaks to the wealth of creativity and diversity in our country,” said Chu. “Through the work of organizations such as Maine College of Art & Design in Portland, Maine, NEA funding invests in local communities, helping people celebrate the arts wherever they are.”
The Art Works category is the NEA’s largest funding category and supports projects that focus on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and/or the strengthening of communities through the arts. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at Maine College of Art & Design, Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks & Pathways brings together contemporary artists whose work engages the themes of migration, immigration, and border crossing. The exhibition is organized by ICA at MECA&D Director of Exhibitions and Special Projects, Erin Hutton and co-curated by Julie Poitras Santos and Catherine Besteman. Poitras Santos is an artist, writer and Assistant Professor in the MFA program at MECA&D. Besteman is Professor of Anthropology at Colby College who has conducted extensive fieldwork in South Africa, Somalia, and the United States.
Eric Gottesman, Jordan Is Not A Country/Desert Fence, 2006, 30”x40,” pigment print *(cropped image in header)
Participating artists include: Ahmed Alsoudani ’05, Caroline Bergvall, Edwige Charlot ’10, Jason De León+Michael Wells+Lucy Cahill, Eric Gottesman, Mohamad Hafez, Romuald Hazoumè, Ranu Mukherjee, Daniel Quintanilla+United YES, María Patricia Tinajero and Yu-Wen Wu.
“Now more than ever, it is time to make the vast cultural contributions of new immigrants visible— in Maine, across America and around the world,” said MECA&D President Laura Freid. “We are grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting our efforts to help make this possible.”
On view this year at the ICA from October 5 through December 14, the exhibit will be accompanied by film screenings, community dialogues, artist talks, and exhibitions hosted by collaborating partner organizations throughout the state. A detailed schedule and more information on each of the affiliated events will be available in September at www.meca.edu/traces.