Eligibility
Who can apply:
To apply for this grant, applicant(s) must be a visual artist, creative, curator, or cultural worker engaging in the visual arts and making risk-taking, collaborative, public projects. Additionally, they must reside in one of the eligible counties: Essex, Norfolk, Middlesex, Suffolk, or Plymouth.
***For the Sustaining Practice tier, there is not a public component requirement, but the research focus should be risk-taking, collaborative, or public facing.
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Applicants must be 18 years or older. At the time of applying and completion of research/project, applicants must be residents of the Greater Boston area residing in either Plymouth, Norfolk, Middlesex, Essex, or Suffolk counties.
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The proposed project cannot be organized by an existing incorporated business (including B Corps, state non-profits, 501(c)(3) organizations, and 501(c)(4) organizations), universities or schools (private, public, charter), religious institutions, or LLCs established for commercial enterprise.
We recognize that some independent artists register as LLCs for tax purposes and in practice operate as a cultural practitioner. These applicants will be considered eligible on a case-by-case basis. A hint to determine if your LLC is eligible is to check if your LLC has more that three members and operates as a commercial enterprise, because if so, it is likely not eligible.
Artists may be working with an existing incorporated business as a venue, but not as part of an organization’s regular programming. This grant is designated for artist-led projects, not to supplement organizational funding.
Artist Collectives
We recognize there is gray area when it comes to groups and collaboration. For collectives or groups, we encourage you to consider members to be those involved in directing or shaping the project or a major component of the project.
Lead Applicant
Only the lead applicant needs to reside in one of the eligible counties
The lead applicant must have a social security number in order to receive payment of the award, and these funds are taxable. The lead applicant is financially responsible for the funds
Collaborators
Do not need to reside in one of the eligible counties
Additional collaborators and/or participants do not need to be U.S. citizens or have social security numbers
Definitions
Lead Applicant and Collaborators
Listed collaborators including the lead applicant must be 18+
Listed collaborators including the lead applicant cannot be enrolled in degree programs—this includes undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students, part time or full time
Listed collaborators including the lead applicant cannot be a faculty or staff member at Tufts University
* This includes, full time, and part-time. Does not include guest lecturers, contracted, freelance, or consulting workers. We consider guest lecturers to be distinct from adjunct positions and offering under three consecutive speaking engagements with the institution.
Applicants can not propose projects to be sited at Tufts University Art Galleries
Defining “risk taking” and “experimentation”
We define risk-taking and experimentation as pushing at the boundaries of the artistic discipline and form or unconventional and innovative approaches to community engagement and reaching audiences or critical analyses of histories and contexts. This grant is meant for artists to lead the way in thinking through what kind of spaces, platforms, opportunities, and collaborations can help sustain their practice and communities, and we welcome creative ways of thinking.
Defining “visual arts”
We define visual arts as working in social practice, photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, film, design, illustration, textiles, performance art, and sound.
Collective Futures Fund, in compliance with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, takes an expansive view toward the visual arts, but the project must have visual arts and visual impact as a strong component. In the application, a project’s relationship to the visual arts should be explained.
For example:
A visual artwork that incorporates film and sound is eligible because it is situated in the context of visual art, but a music video and EP might not be if it is operating and distributed like other commercial music projects.
A dance or movement work that is conceived and presented as a visual artwork (in a gallery, or created with designed props and costumes, or including installation elements, for example) would likely be eligible, but a movement or dance work, choreographed in a traditional process, by a dance company, to be presented in a dance studio or as part of a showcase likely would not be.
We highly encourage applicants to describe their project’s relationship to the visual arts.
Visual artists operating in more traditional, or craft disciplines are also eligible to apply. We ask that all applications describe their risk-taking elements and experimentation within their particular discipline.