Project&

Project& is a nonprofit network of artists, strategists and movement communicators committed to using art and culture for social impact. It commissions original work and collaborates with artists and cultural producers to provide platforms for already-existing work to gain traction, with a special commitment to engaging grassroots communities as both co-creators and beneficiaries of the work. This grant provides general operating support for Project& as it rolls out its Evolving Democracies program, a set of collaborations in communities around the globe, including Chicago, that brings together local artists and community advocates and residents to jointly explore what democracy means to them. The goal of Project&’s work is to use media and culture to spark and expand civic engagement in communities that historically have been marginalized from full participation in the democratic process.

Project& is a nonprofit network of artists, strategists and movement communicators committed to using art and culture for social impact. It commissions original work and collaborates with artists and cultural producers to provide platforms for already-existing work to gain traction, with a special commitment to engaging grassroots communities as both co-creators and beneficiaries of the work. This grant provides general operating support for Project& as it rolls out a new project, Monuments to Movements (M2M), a set of collaborations between social issue advocates, artists and cultural producers, and grassroots communities, to re-imagine public “monuments” designed to acknowledge and celebrate history. In a moment when so many of the country’s historic monuments are being contested, Project& is working to commission new and innovative forms of public monuments, co-created with grassroots communities, in an effort to spark and expand civic engagement in communities that have historically been marginalized from full participation in the democratic process.

Project& is producing Working in America, a multi-dimensional documentary project exploring the relationship between individuals and their working life. It uses the 40^th anniversary of the Studs Terkel publication, Working, as a springboard for a contemporary conversation about the meaning of work and the physical and psychological realties of working in America today. The output of this grant will be a digital interactive documentary, a traveling exhibit for public libraries, and a radio documentary series.