Stamps Awarded $20,000 NEA Grant

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $82 million to fund local arts projects and partnerships in the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2016. Included in this announcement is an Art Works award of $20,000 to the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan to support the Brightmoor Maker Space at the Detroit Community Schools. The Art Works category supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields.

“The arts are all around us, enhancing our lives in ways both subtle and obvious, expected and unexpected,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. ​“Supporting projects like the one from the Stamps School of Art & Design offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.” 

“The Stamps School of Art & Design is committed to the idea of the socially engaged artist and designer,” said Guna Nadarajan, Dean of the Stamps School. ​“We have been working with the Brightmoor neighborhood for many years and support from the NEA’s Art Works program ensures that our commitment is sustainable, supporting community development for generations to come. At Stamps, we fundamentally believe in the power of making. We believe that creative practice can transform you as a person as well as the communities you live and work in.”

The Brightmoor Maker Space — scheduled to open in summer 2016 — will be a workshop space for the development of maker skills, creative thinking, and an incubator for enterprise. It will help strengthen Detroit’s underserved Brightmoor neighborhood through social impact design and creative making. 

To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, please use #NEASpring16. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to http://​arts​.gov